Review by Booklist Review
Over the past decade, Davis' self-published minicomics, contributions to magazines and comics anthologies, and webcomics have been garnering increasing accolades. This first collection of her work shows that the praise is more than warranted. What's most noticeable when the stories are laid up against one another is her varied visual approach, adapting her style to best fit the material. One story may consist of a series of simple, borderless sketches while the next uses detailed drawings within a six-panel grid, and still others eschew line work altogether, using bold blocks of color to hold the drawings and the panels together. The stories' subjects are equally diverse: a back-to-the-land cult falls apart under a despotic leader; a future dystopia lies on the verge of ecological collapse; a pair of youngsters explores an abandoned house; participants in an emotional boot camp learn how to express grief. The success of this collection suggests that short pieces are likely Davis' métier, but what's here is so accomplished that it's natural to hope for a book-length work next time out.--Flagg, Gordon Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The excellence and variety of the art in this short comics story collection is matched only by the painful incisiveness of the stories, most circling around attempts both foolish and sincere to find happiness. Some of Davis's art styles are reminiscent of her children's books (Secret Science Alliance, Stinky)-simple supple black and white line drawings-others resemble Little Golden Books, bright blocks of colors and button nosed characters, but only as if written by Raymond Carver. In "In Our Eden," a bunch of back to nature enthusiasts rebel against a delusional ex-bass pro shop manager who spouts trendy bromides about the paleo diet while fashioning himself as the new Adam. In the futuristic "Nita Goes Home," the juxtapositions are more complex, as a woman who lives in an artificial dome where plants still grow has to return to Earth- a toxic, polluted megacity-when her father is dying. In many stories, happiness is projected on outside forces, a new baby, a lover, yoga, but the answers are rarely that simple and usually backfire horribly, as in "No Tears, No Sorrow," where a woman's emotional breakthrough proves all too complete. A powerful collection that resonates with all the ills, real and imagined, of our modern life. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Library Journal Review
In these 20-plus parables of the human condition, Davis (The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook; Mome contributor) riffs not on happiness but on its opposite. An exquisite color woodblock-style introduces a settlement of neopaleo moderns, attempting to recreate Eden but still in conflict. Cheery painted art tells of Nita, living in a nature-rich gaia dome but visiting her sister's "normal" city where holoscreens erupt everywhere and people keep their toxoff suits zipped. Simple black-and-white drawings show an "Emotion Room," where emotions are slimy black ropes emerging from the body that can be washed away with a warm shower. (Wishful thinking? Totalitarian fantasy?) A thin-line black-and-white documentary depicts skinning a roadkill fox-finally the pelt and the body, joined now only at the nose, seem as two foxes kissing. VERDICT Each vignette in this emotional yet intellectual collage strikes a familiar chord but in a way that disquiets. Fantasy and sf elements lend texture and variety as well as evocative metaphors. An elegant, sophisticated smorgasbord for lovers of literary comics, high school-age and up, and for those still doubting the power of the medium.-M.C. (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
