Girlfriends Magazine
April 2003, book review - p. 18
by Lauren Dockett

This book, with its bold, conscious narrator and unforgettable illustrations, challenges us grown readers to handle Minnie's experiences - and to get beyond an easy teenage girl-victim equation. We're left limping toward a deeper grasp of the tangle of discovered power, desire, and self-hatred that accompanies every girl's first forays into a sexualizing world. Once again Gloeckner forces us closer to that truth than most.

Geist Magazine, #48,
Spring 2003, page 80

This is some of the most frank and original writing about being a teen girl that I have ever seen - no moralizing, nothing predictable, utterly compelling.

Geist magazine is a quarterly featuring the best in Canadian fiction, non-fiction, photography, comix and little-known facts of interest. Geist was named Magazine of the Year in 2001.

www.geist.com

School Library Journal
by Jane Halsall, McHenry Public Library District, IL
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Adult/High School-Fifteen-year-old Minnie Goetze's life is ugly. As the book opens, she asks her mother's 35-year-old boyfriend to have sex with her and he complies. She has many horrible things happen to her, including rape, some of which are the result of her own poor choices. Despite what should have been a privileged family life, there are no healthy or affectionate adults in her life. This story is brutal and raw but Minnie, for all of her teen angst, self-absorption, and self-degradation, shines on every page. Despite the fact that everyone in her young life has used, abused, or abandoned her, Minnie is a valiant and formidable character. She may feel lonely and unloved, but she is never completely lost. Her call to a suicide hot line late in the book is ironic because it gets her the best advice: she has a free will and she doesn't have to become like the dysfunctional people around her. The novel is a mix of primarily diary entries, with occasional illustrations and short "scenes" in graphic-novel format. In the dedication, the author writes that the book is "for all the girls when they have grown," and that is the best criterion for determining the book's readership. Some of the illustrations are sexually explicit and the subject matter and language are definitely for mature readers. Minnie's story of abuse and neglect is one that is rarely told, and rarer still, told so well.

Portland Mercury
(May, 2003?)

Reading this illustrated novel is akin to watching a friend shatter to pieces. You root for her to make some positive choices, but fifteen-year-old Minnie rarely complies...but that's why the book's so absorbing, and with the help of Gloeckner's cartoons, it only gets dirtier...luckily [Gloeckner's] wild youth has turned into art instead of a wasted life.

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