Tobin, Paul & Coover, Colleen – Gingerbread Girl

Website for Paul Tobin

Website for Colleen Coover

Gingerbread Girl

I generally have a problem with comics/tv/movies that have characters talk to the audience in the first person. Not that I have a problem with it in books, as I’ve read too many books written in the first person to still have a problem with it, but in other forms of entertainment it usually takes me right out of the action. But then there was Gingerbread Girl, where everybody in the damned thing (animals included) stop and chat with the audience. And it’s fantastic! This story could have been told without it, I suppose, but it would have made it much less of a story. So yes, I am starting this review by telling you that the graphic novel I’m talking about could very well change a fundamental aspect of how I view most modes of entertainment, so you can probably guess that I liked the book a whole lot. It’s the story of Annah, a young woman who is convinced that she has a sister out there somewhere who was created by her scientist father from an extracted portion of her brain. This sister feels what Annah feels, so Annah has taken to wandering around different parts of town and striking herself with a ruler to see if she hears any cries of pain. Oh, and this sister is missing. And quite possibly imaginary, as she appeared right around the time that Annah’s parents got divorced, and Annah doesn’t seem to have any pictures or any other physical evidence of the existence of a sister. Then again, there are also no pictures of her parents, but they had to exist or Annah wouldn’t exist, and there don’t seem to be any pictures of Annah either before she was around 20… so yeah, lots going on here, and the fun of the book is trying to unravel it all and see what’s true. There’s also the fact that Annah is a bit of a monster, as the book starts with her waiting for a date after making two dates at the same time (she was letting fate decide by going on the date with whoever showed up first). I was still riveted the entire time, and I don’t know what more you could ask of a mystery. It’s funny (some of those animal dialogues had me chuckling out loud), utterly compelling and beautifully drawn (it should be obvious by now that I liked the writer quite a bit too). If you’re a fan of those things you should probably buy a copy of this. Or get it from the library, if you live near a really fantastic library that has a good selection of such things. $12.95