A brutally honest and exposed look into illustrator Phoebe Gloeckner's 1970s childhood through a multimedia format: written in journal entries, letters, panels, and full-page illustrations. Although the book has a tendency to make readers feel squeamish, I think that any girl can relate to Minnie on at least some level. Recommend to lovers of graphic novel memoirs and fans of R. Crumb and company.

 

Publisher Description:

"I don't remember being born. I was a very ugly child. My appearance has not improved so I guess it was a lucky break when he was attracted by my youthfulness." So begins the wrenching diary of Minnie Goetze, a fifteen-year-old girl longing for love and acceptance and struggling with her own precocious sexuality. After losing her virginity to her mother's boyfriend, Minnie pursues a string of sexual encounters (with both boys and girls) while experimenting with drugs and developing her talents as an artist. Unsupervised and unguided by her aloof and narcissistic mother, Minnie plunges into a defenseless, yet fearless adolescence. While set in the libertine atmosphere of 1970s San Francisco, Minnie s journey to understand herself and her world is universal- this is the story of an young woman troubled by the discontinuity between what she thinks and feels and what she observes in those around her. Acclaimed cartoonist and author Phoebe Gloeckner serves up a deft blend of visual and verbal narrative in her complex presentation of a pivotal year in a girl's life, recounted in diary pages and illustrations, with full narrative sequences in comics form.