With this eighteenth installment in his Acme Novelty Library series, Chris Ware has refined a portrait of modern urban loneliness to an almost painful pitch, and yet as in so many of his previous works, Ware succeeds by finding the truths behind his seemingly exaggerated themes. The artwork is colorful and gorgeous as always, and the innovative page and panel layouts continue to amaze with their complex intent and simple beauty. There is an undeniable poetry to Ware's loving explication of his unnamed protagonist and her seemingly bleak world of empty days and nights. And yet the strength of this work is Ware's ability to rise above a morbid fascination with his heroine's unfulfilled dreams, and find in her a continuing capacity for love, even if it is expressed in small and often unrecognized gestures. Ware continues to dare to be true to the modern human spirit, and that alone makes this volume a significant work of art. ( )