There might not be another book like this - graphic novel or otherwise - ever.
'My Favorite Thing Is Monsters' - Part notebook, part artbook, all mystery and coming-of-age. Set in early sixties Chicago, young Karen Reyes loves the monsters she reads about in horror comics and pulp anthology magazines (and watches in B-movies), more than she does people. People, as it turns out, are far scarier. Far more complex, and far more unpredictable, yet predictable in M.O.B.s (Mean, Ordinary and Boring), no matter the time period. Karen knows to fear the mob mentality, instead of any "different" creature that they target in society.
Karen sees herself as a werewolf as she goes through puberty, and she wants to be a detective, complete with coat and hat, as she tries to solve the mystery of the apparent "suicide" of her neighbour Anka Silverberg, a holocaust survivor. Everyone around her, with lives of their own, is a suspect: including Anka's husband, a ventriloquist, a gangster, and Karen's ladies' man older brother Deeze, who has serious issues and a dark past (seriously, he is one to watch out for). On top of juggling everything else in her life, not least some horrifically racist and sexist bullies, Karen's mother also has tragic news...
There are so many metaphors and symbols in this giant of a graphic novel, it would take forever to go through them all. There is famous artwork (Karen and Deeze are artists and they love to visit art museums) to go along with the monster imagery. As we go deeper - look at the bigger picture from all the smaller pictures, as it were - we see how Karen's and Anka's lives are interwoven. I loved reading about both of them. The world is nasty, cruel and sadistic to them, and they survive and cope however they can, using what they've been given. They both carry ghosts of their pasts around with them. They are beautiful and fully-realized and drawn characters, just like all the other characters, even the horrible ones.
'My Favorite Thing Is Monsters' covers important issues, mainly prejudice. Monsters are not real, or are they, in the form of ourselves, the poor, mortal humans? Mobs fear change and differences from the default, the societal norm. Anka is German and Jewish, and she was forced into prostitution far too young, unable to understand just what is going on around her. Her past before and during World War II, against the backdrop of the holocaust, is only the beginning. There is also Karen's friend Franklin, an African-American boy who is clearly hinted to be gay.
Karen's mother is mixed race, and as well her racial identity Karen also deals with revelations about her sexuality - she likes girls, and I liked the little subplot of her rekindling her relationship with her childhood friend Missy, who also secretly loves monster things but pretends to like make-up and boys after her mother forbids her from seeing Karen. Pressure to fit into a hostile, fragile yet "normal" society is strong in this tragically human tale.
A sweet, hugely imaginative, lonely child outcast, Karen is into horror and monsters; it is people who scare her, and for good reason. Therefore she doesn't want to be human, but an undead creature of the night, who wanders through graveyards as she can't die herself...
The sketchy graphic novel can be read in a day, and it ends in a cliffhanger. Damn, how unfair.
It's weird; pretty morose stuff. Blue in more ways than one. But it sucks you in like a painting, telling an absolutely compelling story containing a whole lot of subtext. It could be called abstract and postmodern. I could almost smell the colours and the settings on each bizarre page, like Karen says she can smell everything that's in an outer surface, which is one of her special gifts. I'm not a fan of horror, nor am I an art expert, but even I appreciated the beauty - the sheer ambition and scope - of 'My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Vol. 1'.
Love the characters, love the unraveling plot, love the humanity, the creepiness, the versatility of the artwork - changing along with the mood of the protagonist - hate that it is incomplete. Sequel is optional to read, though. Light speed points for the intersectional feminism as well (in addition, a trans character is featured in Anka's past); a standing ovation for historical fiction.
Unforgettable. Recommended.
Final Score: 4/5
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