5. Ditching Saskia, by John Moore and Neetols
Owned: No, library
Page count: 189
My summary: Damian wants one thing - to bring his mother back, just for a day, so that he can understand how she felt about him. But when the memorial he visits turns out to not be his mother's, Damian is saddled with an energetic young ghost girl named Saskia. He wants to get rid of her, but it's not that easy; particularly not when Saskia has her own traumas to deal with. Both of them need peace. But how can they help each other?
My rating: 4/5
Once again, I am plundering the shelves for any interesting-seeming graphic novels that I can find. This time, I've got a crop of three, which I will cover in quick succession. This first one is a teen story, about loss and grief and lies. It's a good premise - a boy comes into possession of a flower that can bring the dead back as ghosts for a short visit, something common but expensive in this world. There's a touch of magical realism here, a hint at fantasy, but other than the ghost conceit there's nothing here that isn't present in our reality. It's a story that's nakedly about pain and trauma and grief, but there's still heart to it, and the overall tone is bittersweet. It's nice, is what I'm trying to get at. It's just a nice story.
Our dual protagonists are well-laid. Damien has an idealised image of his dead mother, and is actively suppressing the reality that she might have been a more complicated woman than he wants to remember. Saskia tries to defy being a little tragic dead girl, she's angry and hot-headed and doesn't suffer people's attempts to infantilise or lie about her, which causes friction when Damien's friend claims that she's met her. Damien is torn between this kid he has no relation to and what he wants for himself - his crush on a cute guy at his school, him wanting to fit in and be a part of the social world of high school, but it seems like he can't get what he wants without betraying Saskia, this kid who despite being annoying didn't deserve any of this. Damien is grieving his mother; Saskia is grieving herself and the life that she used to lead, and these two stories entwine around each other well. The book is simple, but it gets out all that it needed to examine. Life and death and grief are complicated, and we're going to make mistakes. The truth is in how we perceive ourselves, how we let ourselves love regardless. Which is a nice thing to read.
Next, a young girl attempts to fit into the harsh world of figure skating.
