Quote:
Ayumu is faced with common high school problems: grades, fighting with friends and a general feeling of isolation. Her method of dealing with the trials of adolescence, however, is decidedly more distressing. Ayumu is a cutter, one of an increasing number of teenage compulsive self-mutilators. Tortured by a falling-out with her best friend and dealing with a competitive new school, Ayumu retreats into the cold comforts of self-imposed social exile and self-inflicted injury. Matters are further complicated when Ayumu's manic and boundlessly irritating new friend, Manami, attempts suicide after a difficult breakup. The artwork—especially the inventive page layout—adds a much-needed frisson. Frames and panels merge, fracture and dissolve, reflecting alternating extremes of tranquility and anguish. The cutting scenes are especially powerful, eschewing dialogue in favor of a dreamlike stillness in which Ayumu's chosen implement, a common box cutter, takes on the status of a magical totem. These frames, along with a genuinely haunting, semi-cliffhanger ending, more than make up for the characters' stilted language. The book concludes with a brief fact page written by a clinical psychologist that includes how to deal with cutting in real life. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
It sounds REALLY bad and emo, and I thought that it was going to be really crappy, but the art is actually really good, and the story is great too. Check it out, and please tell me what you think.
