Anyas Ghost

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Average customer rating 4.5 (4 comments)

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Anya's Ghost is an exquisitely faceted gem of a graphic novel that gets better with every re-read. Author Vera Brosgol captures the complexities of a first-generation American teen-age girl through fantasy, adventure, horror, romance, angst, and one Russian word. Anya's Ghost is technically for young adult readers, but older adults would get even more from the book. Read it!

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I first started hearing about this graphic novel a couple of months ago and it immediately caught my attention. How often does Neil Gaiman lend his praise to a work? And then I started seeing the sample pages that First Second released and I was captivated by the illustrations. So needless to say I was really looking forward to reading this book (I kept trying to find someone that would let me read it an ARC because I was so excited about it.) And the book doesn't disappoint at all. It's the perfect story for young and old alike that deals with so many of the same issues that we all face--anxiety about who we are, body image, who are friends are, and growing up just a little bit. Anya is a young teenage girl in high school who is embarrassed by where she and her family came from...Russia. She's trying hard to fit in by losing her accent, wearing the "right" clothes, going on diets, and trying to hang out with the "right" people...in other words not the nerdy Russian boy in her class. But...try as she might she doesn't fit in with the crowd that she really wants to...the popular ones. And then one day, she falls down an abandoned well in the park and meets a skeleton...and the ghost of the young girl from 1918 named Emily. Emily has been forgotten about and can't wander far from her skeleton and was just waiting for someone to come back and visit her. She keeps Anya company as she waits to be rescued, which she soon is, and one of Emily's bones hitches a ride...and Emily's ghost follows. Although there's trepidation at first Emily soon becomes Anya's confidant and helping her get the right answers on exams, making suggestions about what to wear, and help Anya get the attention of her crush. But things soon take a darker turn when it's revealed Emily isn't who she said she was and Anya must protect her family from Emily's darker nature. This is a powerful debut full length graphic novel for Vera (she's done a couple of short stories before) and it's a wonderfully told story. It's a tightly woven tale with mystery, intrigue, and some growing up as well for all of the characters, not just Anya. It moves along at a nice pace and we get a strong sense of who the characters are and what motivates them. It's one of the best stories I've read in a while and unlike some other writers going from short features to full length, Vera doesn't suffer from having gaps in the tale or missing elements. And the illustrations are reminiscent of some old black and white horror films with juuuust the right amount of depth to them without being overly cartoony. It's a fantastic read and I can't say enough good things about it. I highly recommend it to all and I look forward to seeing what Vera does next.

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Anya's the kind of teenage girl who smokes in the bathroom, but secretly wishes she was the kind who dated her school's star athlete. She's afraid that her Mom's cooking will make her fat, afraid that she'll be teased for being a Russian immigrant, and afraid that she'll embarrass herself in gym class. One afternoon Anya skips class, falls down a well, and finds a ghost. This is a fun, quick, spooky read for teenagers or adults. While Anya's Ghost isn't quite a coming of age story, it shows how experiences - both supernatural and ordinary - can open our eyes to the people around us, and how blind to the motives and struggles of others we may be.

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There’s a lot to irritate Anya about her life. Her mother cooks fattening food, she’s associated with an unpopular boy in school just because they’re both Russian immigrants, her close friend is mad at her and she never expects to date the boy she has a crush on. Running away from her problems seems like the best thing to do until she falls down an abandoned well. There she discovers the skeleton of a young woman who died long ago, and her ghost talks to Anya and helps her get out. Soon Emily’s spirit is following Anya to school and staying at her home, and she wants to help her succeed at whatever she tries. But Emily is hiding a secret about her past, and when Anya starts to suspect the truth, Emily’s “help” takes a sinister turn. Anya’s Ghost is a graphic novel for young adults written and illustrated by Vera Brosgol. Anya, with all her worries about fitting in, is easy prey for Emily, who longs to have experiences again through a living human. And at first, Emily seems to help Anya get everything she wants: attention from her crush, acceptance from cool kids, and help on tests. Once Anya is part of the world she admires, she begins to see that it’s not what she dreamed it was. But getting rid of Emily and getting back to her old life proves to be more challenging than Anya thought it would be. Girls aged 14 and up will relate to the issues of wanting to fit in, being embarrassed by family members, and wanting easy solutions to complicated problems.