The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Revised Edition: An Account in Words and Pictures
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Book Overview
First released in 2002, this provocative, critically acclaimed novel is now a major motion picture starring Bel Powley, Kristen Wiig, and Alexander Skarsg rd.
"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 a 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. The Diary of a Teenage Girl offers a searing comment on adult society as seen though the eyes of a young woman on the verge of joining it. This edition has been updated by the author with an introduction reflecting on the book's critical reception and value as diary or novel, historical document or work of art. Also included in this revised edition are supplementary photographs and illustrations from the author's childhood, including some of her own diary entries. Phoebe Gloeckner... is creating some of the edgiest work about young women's lives in any medium.--The New York Times One of the most brutally honest, shocking, tender and beautiful portrayals of growing up female in America.--Salon It's the most honest depiction of sexuality in a long, long time; as a meditation on adolescence, it picks up a literary ball that's been only fitfully carried after Salinger.--Nerve.comFormat:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:1623170346
ISBN13:9781623170349
Release Date:July 2015
Publisher:North Atlantic Books
Length:320 Pages
Weight:1.57 lbs.
Dimensions:0.8" x 6.6" x 9.3"
Customer Reviews
5 ratings
Details and trigger but you can’t put it down
Published by Catmother , 5 years ago
This book has a lot of triggers in it about abuse and drugs. This book is also very hard to put down once you start reading it. It is for a mature audience because it is very detailed. I did buy this used and it was almost brand new. I really enjoyed reading this book (I’m 21 and I’m reading it for women’s lit in college)
Thank You
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 22 years ago
I fell in love with Minnie.So many adults fail miserably at writing the adolescent. This is a brilliant work - it doesn't belittle the character and allows her to have intelligence and understanding at a delicate age, while still retaining her youth. The illustrated storyboards are weaved into the book beautifully. I can't imagine the story without them, as they provide a different kind of insight.Just excellent.
This is a dark ride. Turn on your Lava Lite!
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 22 years ago
Like the character Minnie, I was also 15 in 1976. I used to walk around the neighborhood drinking beer out of a brown paper bag, or go to the all-night diner at the drugstore at 3 am to drink coffee & smoke cigarettes. This book is totally evocative of those times. What's more, Phoebe Gloeckner manages to capture the emotional landscape of adolescence with a breathtaking acuity reminiscent of Francesca Lia Block or Lynda Barry. I recommend "The Hanged Man" by Francesca Lia Block. Not everybody can handle dark books like this, but to those of us who lived through similar times, this is a special book. Please give us more, Phoebe!
Well Done
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 22 years ago
Phoebe Gloeckner succeeded in charting her course through a difficult marriage between two forms of storytelling that have often been at odds with each other. Literature has never been kind to comics but Gloeckner seamlessly switches from words to images which complement each other and make this book a real page turner.I am a devout fan of Gloeckner's work, let there be no secret about it. In an ongoing effort to interest my girlfriend in comics I give her contemporary comics by women. "The Diary of a Teenage Girl" was such a gift. However, I read the book cover to cover before she could ever get to it. Unfortunately there are not to many published U.S. women comics artists out there. Those who are published have very unique individual voices which stand high above the bleak mannerism that has been plaguing American comics in the second half of the last decade. Gloeckner is at the top of her game.
Diary of a Teenage Girl (Phoebe Gloeckner)
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 22 years ago
Ever since reading 'A Child's Life,' I'd been looking forward to this book, and I was not disappointed. Phoebe Gloeckner's 15-year-old fictional alter-ego, Minnie, keeps a journal that is sharply observant, articulate, and funny, without crossing the line into the 'adult over-writing' that often plagues adults' versions of children's diaries. The setting (1970s San Francisco) makes many of the things that Minnie describes matter-of-factly seem jarring when you step back--affairs with older men, 'responsible' parental drug use, etc. Yet when you're reading the book, Minnie's world envelops you completely.Unlike many other (quite believable) teenage characters, Minnie does not even pretend to be cool or detached. She blatantly states her craving to be loved, hugged, touched. The dynamics of her affair with her mother's boyfriend, in which she tends to be the sexual instigator, are fascinating and heartbreaking at the same time. The juxtaposition of the sordid and the innocent is seamless: one minute Minnie and her best friend are swigging schnapps and passing joints on their way to a sexual encounter with a married man; the next, they're running down the street laughing, stuffing their faces with dime-store candy.Gloeckner's drawings are plush and emotional, detailing specific blocks in San Francisco and capturing facial expressions with equal care.Anyone who likes to be swept up wholly into a character's life should enjoy this unusual book.
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