Crushing

Destiny drives this lonely hearts tale, a charming graphic novel debut about yearning and missed connections between two Londoners. Nearly wordless except for ambient chatter and urban signage, Burrows’s pencil panels, in hues of sea green and gray illuminated with scarlet, picture two endearingly slouchy pale-skinned singletons who pass like clumsy ships in the night. A young woman with straight black hair dodges sexy underwear ads on the Tube and aims a hopeful, unrequited grin at a cute commuter who pointedly ducks his head behind a newspaper. Facing a barren fridge at home, she orders takeout at a kebab shop, where she encounters (and ignores) a quiet pajama-clad guy with a mop of red hair, whose story the narrative picks up as he takes a soul-crushing part-time gig and contemplates his isolation over a pint at a pub. The characters’ parallel lives overlap, as when the dejected fellow crashes his bike in a traffic jam, and an ambulance hurtles past the momentarily optimistic heroine, en route to a concert alone. The “crushing” of the title alludes to both heaviness and new love, with an emphasis on the former, in a narrative that recommends optimism and a wry sense of humor while acknowledging the ubiquity of loneliness. Ages 16–up. (Jan.)■