Review: Skim
Title: Skim
Authors: Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki
Published: February 28, 2008
Page Count: 140
Genres: Young Adult, Graphic Novel
My Rating: 3/5
The time is the early 1990s, the setting a girls’ academy in Toronto. Enter “Skim,” aka Kimberly Keiko Cameron, a not-slim, would-be Wiccan goth. When her classmate Katie Matthews is dumped by her boyfriend, who then kills himself, the entire school goes into mourning overdrive. It’s a weird time to fall in love, but Skim does just that after secret meetings with her neo-hippie English teacher, Ms. Archer. When Ms. Archer abruptly leaves the school, Skim has to cope with her confusion and isolation, as her best friend, Lisa, tries to pull her into “real” life by setting up a hilarious double date for the school’s semi-formal. Skim finds an unexpected ally in Katie. Suicide, depression, love, being gay or not, crushes, cliques of popular, manipulative peers — the whole gamut of tortured teen life is explored in this masterful graphic novel by cousins Mariko and Jillian Tamaki.
This is only my second graphic novel (ever) and unfortunatly for Skim, the first one I read was American Born Chinese, so I was kind of comparing them while I was reading this one. I tried really hard not to, but when you are just starting a genre it’s very difficult not to make comparisons. I think the fact that I was so enthralled with American Born Chinese made it difficult for me to love Skim. I definitely enjoyed the book, I just wasn’t enamored by it.
I think my issue with Skim is that, yes, there are a LOT of themes in the book very pertinent to teens. The problem, at least from my perspective, is that there are perhaps TOO many themes covered in the book. As in, I don’t know that the author did any one of the themes justice. Like there just wasn’t enough time or space to delve deeply into any one thing, so they are all sort of covered, but nothing is really covered in detail. I liked the character of Skim, and I liked her progression throughout the book, but for me there just wasn’t enough detail. I don’t feel that I got to understand any of the other characters, and with a book dealing with these kinds of themes, I want to understand the characters.
I don’t know. It is a good book. I feel bad not being super positive about it, because I did like it. Don’t trust my opinions alone, though. Plenty of other readers and bloggers have gushed about Skim so maybe I’m missing something. Go ahead and read the book. Come back and let me know what you think – am I missing something? Is this an amazing graphic novel and I just don’t “get” it?
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