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Sunday, October 3, 2010
Fanboy wants three things out of life. To own a mint condition Giant-Size X-Men #1, a new computer so that he can complete the work on his own graphic novel Schemata, and the third, well he's not telling. The rest of his life sucks. His best friend is a jock who secretly likes comics too. His mother and stepfather are expecting a new baby and expect him to be happy about it. And to top it all off, some jerk in his gym class repeatedly punches him in the shoulder every day. Then one day he receives an IM (Instant Message) from someone he doesn't know that asks: "Why do you let him hit you?" This begins a strange friendship that pulls Fanboy out of his comfort zone as well changes his view of the world.
Violence is a key theme of this story. Pervading the entire length of this book is the fear that Fanboy is going to be pushed to far by his tormentors and bring a gun to school to finally fulfill his fantasy of offing everyone on The List. Thankfully, the reader is treated to a nonviolent ending. But what Lyga has done is put the knowledge there that any young adult, no matter the GPA or seeming normality, has the capacity to be pushed that one step too far and do something violent. The contrast to Fanboy's fantasy about killing his tormentors is Goth Girl's (Kyra) attempts to commit suicide. Lyga shows the reader that teens in pain are not only liable to do violence to others but themselves as well.
Particularly well done in this story is the way the character slowly comes to really look at the world and the people surrounding him. Early in the story we see that Fanboy is writing a graphic novel, and that Goth Girl sees something of value in it. Under the guise of studying character and situation for later stories, Fanboy begins observing the people around him and thus seeing the truth of how things really are. His step-father is not quite the monster he makes him out to be, that the jocks mock each other just like they mock him, that the girl of his dreams doesn't have quite the perfect life he thinks, and finally that Kyra is suicidal and needs help.
A real selling point for this novel is the knowledge of comics and graphic novels displayed by Lyga. Teen fans of those media will enjoy the references to Neil Gaiman's The Sandman and other popular graphic novel series as well as the seriousness with which Lyga treats the media as a valid body of literature. A 2007 School Library Journal article agrees saying, "Here's a prose novel that includes lots of descriptive detail about graphic novels, an essentially visual medium, rendered into an aural performance with huge success."
Recommended for grades 9 and up.
Image taken from: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/l/barry-lyga/astonishing-adventures-of-fanboy-amp-goth-girl.htm
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