It's not what you thought it would be

As one character laments in this collection of interconnected short comics, "What they don't tell you about the end of the world . . . is that it happens every day." Working in color ranging from grayscale to a full palette, Stewart draws simplified figures against brushy backgrounds, summoning emotion in facial expressions and realistic, sincere dialogue. A girl gets caught in the very downpour her mother wanted her to avoid when she, her brother, and other kids in their housing estate build a shelter for a dying fox. A woman recalls her crippling childhood self-consciousness. Most characters are teenage, like the bored friends who find a whole new world on top of one of their school buildings, or are older but remembering those years, as in two separate comics in which friends catch up over drinks, their conversations spanning worlds of both love and hurt. Across the title comic's series of vignettes, longtime friends ponder what's changed and what hasn't over the years. Enjoyable, relatable comics about the perplexing process of growing up.

Childhood transitions into adulthood through poignant and pointed vignettes in this graphic novel from Stewart (Walking Distance). Two unnamed women, friends since childhood, discover that old bonds are difficult to permanently sever. Their stories, set in the U.K. between country and cityscapes, often consist almost entirely of conversations between them, much of it seemingly casual, until the subtext breaks through; for example, a pointed "Oh. But. That's not how I feel, at all" shatters both the character's and the reader's assumptions. Temporary grade school alliances prepare the way for intense, 1990s angst-tinged teenage friendship and the realization that growing up sometimes means drifting apart, but not forever. Slices of life outside of the core narrative provide texture, but also highlight that there's scant space given to one of the two central friends. (While it emphasizes an imbalance in the relationship, readers are also left wishing they learned more about her.) The soft lines and muted colors or monochrome of Stewart's art subtly heightens the emotionality. There's a quiet but powerful immediacy to this that will appeal to lit fic fans who may not always pick up comics. (July)