I bought this last week over at Carol & John's Comic Shop. Carol was doing a handsell to another customer and I picked it up too. If you ever think that just talking about books loudly in public doesn't lead to impulse purchases, you are wrong. (By the way, Carol & John's is the best Cleveland area comic shop--how can you resist a family business run by a geek mom and her firefighter son, a store that is friendly, clean, bright and organized, had a shop kitty until his tragic death from a stroke, and tends to have cookies on the counter? You can't. I'm going to miss them when I go.)
Right--so Jane was a Metro City girl until a terrorist attack left her with a case of PTSD and a fixation on the John Doe beside her on the street. He's lying in a coma in a hospital, and she's writing him letters, since her parents packed up and moved to the safer suburbs. Despite the flee to an illusion of safety, they've become extremely overprotective. Jane misses her old life and is walking around in a fog. She attempts to befriend a pack of fellow Janes--Drama Jane, the character actress wasted in the high school drama club, Brain Jayne, a science geek (and proud!), and Polly Jane, star athlete. Ha, ha, they want nothing to do with Jane until she intrigues them with an idea: P.L.A.I.N.--People Loving Art In Neighborhoods. A series of installations of ordinary objects to shake things up a little. No one gets hurt, and it's easily changed back. Just an attempt to get people to think and feel--it's all good, right? But the Janes learn that sometimes ordinary actions have big consequences as their installations affect people in myriad ways.
I thought the plot and characters were a bit underdeveloped and light, but I thought the artwork looked good. It was worth a read, but not a keeper for me. No emotional impact, and not really character driven. They're all stereotypes! But that's okay within the scope of the book. I saw a book by Castellucci on the YA shelf at work, so I'm going to check out more of her stuff.
This is the first release from the new imprint Minx Books out of DC Comics. Upcoming titles look good--Andi Watson has a lighthearted tale London punk girl solving a mystery in the country on a visit to the grandparents, I like the looks of Good As Lily in which a girl gets a crack on the head from a birthday pinata and is joined by herself at ages 6, 29 and 70, all existing on one plane/timestream/whatever, and a romance n' family tale about a Korean American girl.
I might be getting to buy some graphic novels & manga for the part-time job. Keep those fingers crossed!
