Eightball Ghost World (New Ptg) s/c back

Enid and Becky, two teenage friends face the end of their school life and the big leap into their future. Kitsch pop culture and the imagined lives of people they see in the coffee shop fascinate them as they grow apart and are slowly pulled in different directions. Clowes holds back the temptation to mock the girls' fights and misunderstandings instead showing an objective tenderness.

I've known Becky and Enid many times, seen them searching for something they don't quite understand that they've lost. This is the summer between school and college told in eight two-colour chapters. Here Clowes has shown us two likeable if frustrating characters unsure of their place. One is ready to break out, trying on new skins and ideas, the other stunted in the shadow of her friend. I guess that is what charms me: the study of a friendship and that last summer.