Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol

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Original Title: Anya's Ghost

ISBN: 1596435526
ISBN13: 9781596435520
Autor: Vera Brosgol (Goodreads Author)
Rating: 3.1 of 5 stars (2817) counts
Original Format: Paperback, 224 pages
Download Format: PDF, DJVU, iBook, MP3.
Published: June 7th 2011 / by First Second
Language: English
Genre(s):
Sequential Art >Graphic Novels- 2,516 users
Young Adult- 825 users
Sequential Art >Comics- 580 users
Fantasy- 416 users
Fiction- 289 users

Description:
Of all the things Anya expected to find at the bottom of an old well, a new friend was not one of
them. Especially not a new friend whos been dead for a century.

Falling down a well is bad enough, but Anya's normal life might actually be worse. She's
embarrassed by her family, self-conscious about her body, and she's pretty much given up on
fitting in at school. A new friend--even a ghost--is just what she needs.

But Anya's new B.F.F. isn't kidding about the "forever" part...

About Author:

Vera Brosgol was born in Moscow, Russia in 1984 and moved to the United States when she was
five. She received a diploma in Classical Animation from Sheridan College, and currently works at
Laika Inc. in Portland, Oregon drawing storyboards for feature animation.
She has done illustration work for clients such as Nickelodeon, Sony Computer Entertainment,
and Simon & Schuster. Her first graphic novel, Anya's Ghost, was published in 2011 by First
Second Books.
She loves knitting, baking, and trying not to kill her plants. She hopes you are enjoying looking at
her drawings!

Other Editions:
- Anya\'s Ghost (Hardcover)

- Anya\'s Ghost (Paperback)

- Anya\'s Ghost (Kindle Edition)

- Anya e il suo fantasma (Hardcover)

- El fantasma de Anya (Hardcover)

Books By Author:

- Leave Me Alone!
 - What Were You Raised By Wolves?

- Be Prepared

- Machine of Death: A Collection of Stories About People Who Know How They
Will Die (Machine of Death #1)

- Nursery Rhyme Comics

Books In The Series:

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Rewiews:

Jul 25, 2011

Seth T.
Rated it: it was amazing
Shelves: comics
When I was in high school, there wasnt a lot of bullying. And there werent really any cliques. Or
maybe there were but I was just too blissfully ignorant to notice. Its not like I was especially
popular. Its not as if I wasnt kind of nerdy or kind of artsy or kind of freaky. I mean, look at me.

Yep. This is exactly as rad as it looks.

Its more just that I never felt as if I couldnt, if I had wanted to, talk to someone and have them not
snub me outright. Maybe its different in other schools
When I was in high school, there wasnt a lot of bullying. And there werent really any cliques. Or
maybe there were but I was just too blissfully ignorant to notice. Its not like I was especially
popular. Its not as if I wasnt kind of nerdy or kind of artsy or kind of freaky. I mean, look at me.
Yep. This is exactly as rad as it looks.

Its more just that I never felt as if I couldnt, if I had wanted to, talk to someone and have them not
snub me outright. Maybe its different in other schools around the country, but according to my
experience in Orange County circa 1990, school-based YA lit just doesnt ring true.

Generally speaking, of course. There are always a few works of the genre that dont play to clich.
Thankfully, Anyas Ghost avoids most of the usual traps of the form. There are even moments
when I found myself gleefully surprised at a direction in which Vera Brosgol would choose to take
her story. Anyas Ghost, as one may have guessed by now, is about three things. A girl named
Anya, high school shenanigans, and, of course, a ghost. So really, the joy is in the details of how
the story all works out rather than in the genius of any of the three parts on their own.
Life Lesson #1: Dont fall down pits in the park. Just not as healthy as youd imagine.

In the first place, Brosgol works hard to make Anya a character who very easily could be weird or
strange or unwelcome but isnt. Shes a typical teen from an immigrant family. She herself is an
immigrant and by her word we learn that shes worked very hard to compensate for her
inauspicious country of origin. Shes overcome her accent, acclimated to the cultural diversity of
young American life, and doesnt dress like someone whos just discovered clothes. (Apparently
dressing like someone who can put together a plausible outfit is not something immigrants can
naturally accomplish?) Shes also embarrassed by her native culture and goes to lengths to
distance herself from that which will mark her as Foreign. Sometimes that means shortening an
obnoxiously difficult-to-pronounce last name and sometimes it means forsaking the other kid from
your country who hasnt quite overcome his eager-foreigner tendencies yet.

It happens
In a lot of ways, Anyas Ghost explores the same cultural experience Gene Yang looks at in
American Born Chinese
, the barrier between being true to our own identity and being accepted by the world around us.
While Yangs protagonist gets a perm and imagines himself white, Brosgols Anya is determined to
be assimilated. Both books speak gently to the threat of alienation, to the social stigma attached to
not fitting in. Both works, in the end, admonish the reader that fitting in isnt the be-all, end-all of
humanlet alone high schoolexistence. And best of all, neither book comes off overly preachy
in their lessons, which is always nice for stories that contain overt morals at books end.

Young women, know this: your fears of turning out to look like your mother are well-founded. Age
is a terrible, terrible thing. It must be stopped. The world needs a new hero.

Brosgol uses as much care with her exploration of the high school drama as she does in keeping
her protagonist well-rounded. She doesnt travel the typical lazy storytelling route of dividing the
school into neat compartments. There are no jocks, nerds, cheerleaders, skaters, goths, or loadies
in evidence here. There are no Heathers. Instead, there are just kids. And these kids have their
social connections, but they arent divided down lines so plain as Extracurricular Interest. Anya
has one best friend, an Irish girl named Siobhan, but she seems on friendly (or at least neutral)
terms with most people. Dima, the Russian-extracted goodie-two-shoes, doesnt pal around in a
herd of nerds but simply offends on his lonesome. And Anyas as-yet-unreciprocated romantic
interest, Sean, is not the leader of the popular kids. Hes just a good-looking guy with a good-
looking girlfriend. These are realistic persons forming a realistic net of relationships.

And as for the ghost, Ill refrain from talking too much about her, simply because her role drives
the story. Well just leave it at this: I was surprised by what Brosgol did with what could have been
a terribly cliched device. And that I could be so pleasantly pleased speaks highly for Brosgols
product here.
I dated a girl once with haunted cleavage. Well, okay, no. I didnt. But pretending I did makes the
whole thing seem more worthwhile.

In fact, the entire package is just extremely well-conceived. The art, while cartoony and fairly
simple, is just about perfect. Brosgol employs a style that reminds me of Andi Watsons work on
later Skeleton Key (maybe crossing volumes 4 and 5), which is just a fantastic place to start. The
panel composition is fluid, well-pronounced, and tells Brosgols story without any difficulty. Its all
very clean and tidyand in this reminds me of Yangs ABC. As well, Anya herself is drawn in such
a way that we can see shes a bit off from the cultural ideal but still beautiful on her own. Its
primarily her own lack of confidence that keeps people from noticing her.

So far as the writing goes, Brosgol treats her characters with respect and even when shes not
giving them whip-smart repartee, she at least keeps them from speaking like imbeciles. This is
trickier than you might imagine in the domain of YA lit. Consider the best-selling Hunger Games.
Or the better-selling Twilight. Dialogue is hard. Smart or believable dialogue is harder still. Anyas
Ghost pretty much nails this. (Its not Raymond Chandler, but really, what is?)

The ghost has a point, I guess.

Prior to this work, I was entirely unfamiliar with Vera Brosgol or her work. Even now, I dont know if
shes created anything else. But based on Anyas Ghost, I plan to check out whatever bibliography
she has as soon as this review posts. I am now a fan.
[review courtesy of Good Ok Bad]
84 likes
8 comments

Shelli
Wait wait wait that was seriously your hair?! Dude. That is EPIC.

Oct 28, 2016 04:48PM

Margaret Dilloway
Awesome review on all counts. Especially the pic.

Dec 27, 2016 08:13PM