This is a legacy blog post, originally from my previous website, Mouse House Blog. To see more MHB posts, check out the MHB tag here on my blog.
Recently I read the graphic novel Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol. It was a long-overdue read for me, and I was very pleased to get around to it. I love a good comic and I’d been hearing good things ever since it came out. And it was right up my alley: an underdog female protagonist, a ghost, a coming-of-age story without any kitsch. It took me about an hour and a half to get through, but the pacing was great and the story felt perfectly balanced with the comic medium.
One of my favourite things about Anya’s Ghost was that it had no pretensions about what it’s like to be a teenager, especially one trying to fit in. Anya smokes, struggles with her weight, has a love-hate relationship with her only real friend (but is still more or less friendly with other students! None of that total-loner-speaks-to-literally-no-one stuff you so often get), and is faced with the fact that people around her aren’t always quite what they seem from a distance. She also shares the experience of many immigrant kids – trying to fit in with American culture and rejecting the (in this case) Russian culture to which her mother is still so attached. The teens are pretty realistic – swearing, cutting class, being brash, and more or less acting like idiots, but without the melodramatic extremeness of those teen dramas like Degrassi that drive me so crazy. In addition, even side characters get enough development throughout the storyline to make them three-dimensional and believable, hinting at greater depths and possibilities within their personal stories.
I also love the way the plot of the story is laid out. It’s well-paced in the medium (comics read so much faster than prose, so this is always important to me) and no bigger or smaller than fits into its length. It also doesn’t try to solve every single one of Anya’s problems – it just gives us a slice of her growth as a young woman. The only plot element that is completely explored and resolved is Anya’s relationship with the ghost, Emily. Anya discovers Emily, gets to know her, and resolves the conflicts of that storyline within the bounds of the book. Besides that are only sections of broader plots: Anya learns that her crush Sean is a dick, but she doesn’t find new love like so many stories were have her do. In that same breath the story shows that Sean’s apparently-perfect relationship with the apparently-perfect Liz isn’t what it seems, and Liz is in an unfortunate position, but this is never resolved. There are indications at the end of the story that Anya’s friendship with Siobhan may be heading toward a healthier place, and there are hints at other potential friendships she may be able to forge with side characters. By the end, though, she has definitely grown: she’s no longer interested in smoking, and she’s found a little more confidence in herself and comfort with her Russian heritage. The end is definitely hopeful, showing how just one small event in your life can change a lot of things and leaving the reader with the impression that Anya’s got a lot of good still ahead of her. The end of the story doesn’t feel like the end of Anya’s story, even if the rest of it doesn’t need to be told to us. There’s also an acknowledgement that all the loose ends can’t be neatly tied up at the end of a single contained phase in life, and that there’s no point at which it will feel like absolutely everything is wrapped up and taken care of – but without any disappointment for the reader. It’s still a fulfilling and satisfying ending.
(Spoilers) My only concern or criticism with this story has to do with the ghost, Emily. Anya eventually realizes that Emily’s been lying about her life – she wasn’t murdered by a cold-blooded stranger after her fiancé died at war. Emily, in fact, died after being jilted by the man she loved, and burning down the house where he was staying with his lover. As a ghost, she was obsessed with love (as she perceived it) and with helping Anya win “true love” with Sean. While on its own, abstracted from context, this isn’t a terrible plotline, it does fall into the tropes of crazy ex-girlfriend or Hell hath no fury. We have plenty of stories about women ‘going crazy’ and becoming violent and obsessive after rejection, despite the fact that it is more often men who engage in those kinds of behaviours. This trope itself is at best rather tired, and pretty inarguably sexist. At any rate it’s not a plot we needed – we have thousands of tales, both in fiction and in everyday anecdotes, of women losing their minds over lost love. It’s perpetuating a stereotype that is used in real life, all the time, to put down or dismiss women, especially those who may be feeling hurt after romantic rejection. While it would be a lie to say that such things have never happened, the phenomenon is grossly and harmfully exaggerated in our pop culture, and we’d be healthier for it if we could phase this narrative out of use. (End spoilers.)
That being said, the story as a whole is still thoroughly enjoyable. It hit all the right spots for me: great art, fun character designs, a strong heroine, the supernatural and a little bit of creepiness, wonderfully natural dialogue and character evolution, realistic teens, and good, relatable storytelling. It’s a great, self-contained story foregrounding girls in a variety of roles, each with her own interesting characterization and distinct personality. I’d strongly recommend Anya’s Ghost to anyone who loves a good comic or wants to get into them.