I have finally read it, after waiting several months to finally make the purchase. I heard so much about TEOTFW and all the hype yet I really had no idea what the story was about. It surprised me. Is this a book about a sociopath and his extremely co-dependent girlfriend? Yes on the surface it certainly is. This is also allegory portraying a teenage love story. What makes a short story great (including graphic novel form) is when you are finished, you continue to think about it. Wonder about what was really trying to be said here. Fill in some blanks, look back at it again and discover either "the" meaning or your own meaning. That is how TEOTFW was for me. On the surface it was creepy and violent and spoke very loudly about a topic nobody wants to discuss. Underneath, it is a road trip coming of age story about a couple of kids that hate their lives at home only to discover that out there in the world there is just as much if not more sickness and craziness than they were trying to escape from. Well done, simple clean illustration and short and chilly narration that speaks volumes. A little book with many layers, just like people. Like every genre, YA books are becoming darker and grittier with every passing year; taboo topics are now the spine of stories and not something that they contort to skirt around. That said there is still nothing out there quite like TEotFW, nothing that can prepare you for just how twisted and gut-turning Charles Forsman's comic can be.Two doting but disturbed teenagers decide to drop-out of their safe suburban lives and go on the run 'Badlands' style, having sexual and satanic adventures along the way. It should be silly, the extremes that they go to, but because of how truthfully the teens are depicted, how repeatably everyday they are, their actions become really quite shocking. I didn't like this book at all, but I wasn't supposed to. Despite it's short length and lack of driving story it's a devastating read, an unsettling one that I won't likely shake for some time.
Do You like book The End Of The Fucking World (2013)?
Should have looked closer before I started reading! Too twisted for my taste.
—karen
This book is perfect. Gorgeous. Haunting. Tender. Darkly funny. Heartbreaking.
—starchilde2
