Life 1 - Softcover

Suenobu, Keiko; Kobayashi, Michelle; Lockman, Darcy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1595329315 ISBN 13: 9781595329318

Publisher: Tokyopop, 2006

Synopsis

Ayumu faces the common high school problems of grades, fighting with friends, and a general feeling of isolation, but she deals with them by compulsively cutting herself.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Ayumu is faced with common high school problems: grades, fighting with friends and a general feeling of isolation. Her method of dealing with the trials of adolescence, however, is decidedly more distressing. Ayumu is a cutter, one of an increasing number of teenage compulsive self-mutilators. Tortured by a falling-out with her best friend and dealing with a competitive new school, Ayumu retreats into the cold comforts of self-imposed social exile and self-inflicted injury. Matters are further complicated when Ayumu's manic and boundlessly irritating new friend, Manami, attempts suicide after a difficult breakup. The artwork—especially the inventive page layout—adds a much-needed frisson. Frames and panels merge, fracture and dissolve, reflecting alternating extremes of tranquility and anguish. The cutting scenes are especially powerful, eschewing dialogue in favor of a dreamlike stillness in which Ayumu's chosen implement, a common box cutter, takes on the status of a magical totem. These frames, along with a genuinely haunting, semi-cliffhanger ending, more than make up for the characters' stilted language. The book concludes with a brief fact page written by a clinical psychologist that includes how to deal with cutting in real life. (Apr.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Tokyopop
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1595329315
• ISBN 13: 9781595329318
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192