S.E. Case

Anna Jensen's life isn't going that well.

The high schooler does the family grocery shopping at food pantries. She sees her mother's boyfriends more than she sees her mother, and she often crashes with friends or with her half-sister in the trailer park in order to avoid being left alone with the parade of skeevy men seeing her mother or her mother's roommate. While she has been a good student, she's finding it harder to concentrate on her studies, and she has just been paired for a class show more project with the school loser, a guy who has flunked so many times he's still a senior at 21.

Making it all harder is remembering how just a few years ago, her mother had a steady boyfriend and stable housing. But that has all gone up in smoke.

I skimmed through the first volume of this series before tackling this one because, while I did like it a lot, the details of the slice-of-life adventures of teenagers in a small Wisconsin town had faded from my memory. Turns out I needn't have bothered because most of the characters and storylines from it are sidelined as Anna goes on her own little odyssey of sadness.

Anna pulls at my sympathies, triggering fatherly protectiveness when moments of substance abuse, shoplifting and male gaze pop up. Here's hoping she catches a few breaks. But having got me all in on her, I suppose the next volume will focus on a different member of the cast now. show less

*reviewed from uncorrected eARC via netgalley* (pub date Mar 4 2025)

graphic fiction, series (vol. 1 from the Rigsby WI webcomic) - teens coming of age in 2002 rural Rigsby, Wisconsin; in this volume, Beth (who is homeschooled by her aunt, thankfully away from her intolerable, hypercritical mother) and her friends get ready for the homecoming dance, with the usual disappointments -- plus some bonus comics that provide interesting backstory. Jeordie is the one brown/Iranian person in school, show more Jenna is Jeordie's girlfriend of 3 months, Anna (still kind of a mystery) seems like a good friend, and Erik (who, like Beth, is considered "overweight") is crushing on a girl who doesn't like him that way. (CW/TW: fat-shaming, distrustful parent; cigarette and pot-smoking; potential medication abuse; making out and potentially going "all the way")

I wasn't sure what to expect from this, but by the end I was wrapped up in these characters and their messy lives. Looking forward to reading more, thanks! show less

A nice little teen soap opera.

We meet the kids as they are preparing for the upcoming homecoming dance. One is ambivalent about his relationship with his girlfriend. Another has an emotionally abusive mother. Their friends give hints of issues that will be revealed in the future.

The art reminded me of Giant Days at times, but the script goes in an different direction from that series, tacking steadily toward quiet and earnest instead of zany and absurd.

Low-key but engaging.

Side Note: This show more series is a retelling of the author's previous webcomic, Cheap Thrills, wherein the same characters were all anthropomorphized animals. It's amusing to compare the two and see how different they are in tone and characterization.

FOR REFERENCE:

Collects material originally published digitally at https://rigsbywi.com from January 1, 2019, through December 30, 2019 as "Chapter 1."

Chapters 2 through 4 are also available to read online if you don't want to wait for the print editions. show less