Following Potential
, Awkward
and Definition
, Schrag presents the final chapter of her High School Comic Chronicles. Now entering her senior year, Schrag faces a whole new set of challenges. She has to get over a breakup with last year’s girlfriend, Sally, who has left for college (and maybe for boys). She has to apply to college herself. She has to write and draw her latest comic (the ultimately well-received Potential
). And for good measure, she decides to read James Joyce’s Ulysses
in her spare time. By turns funny, raw and self-indulgent, Schrag perfectly captures the growing pains of a precocious high school senior. Events come and go, punctuated by her obsession with Sally, her anxieties about college and her constant wondering about how she’ll recount everything in her comic. Schrag’s figures are simple but expressive, which allows her to dig into some of the more complicated emotions her cartoon counterpart experiences. This memoir will assure the talented kid who didn’t quite fit in at high school that she’s not alone. (Apr.)
