In emotive two-color illustrations, Michael Cho (Back Alleys and Urban Landscapes) explores the quarter-life crisis now common to young professionals through the eyes of one twentysomething woman.
In college, Corinna Park had big dreams. A literature major, she planned to write a novel and become a full-time author. Five years after graduation, she writes for a living but has traded her novelist fantasy for an ill-fitting job as a copywriter. Even the stray cat she rescued regards her with disdain. Burned out on trying to make it in the big city, uninterested in partying with her coworkers and not sure how to make a change for the better, Corinna's only thrill comes from indulging in shoplifting: "Magazines only. Honest." She rationalizes her behavior--she doesn't do it all the time, magazines are cheap, she's stealing from a corporation rather than a real person--but truthfully, her petty thefts give her the rush online dating, flipping TV channels and writing copy about little girls' perfume can't. Although her life seems stuck in an inescapable limbo, Corinna is moving toward a confrontation and a decision that will profoundly affect her future.
Cho expertly depicts the internal conflict between the need for security and the desire to explore one's dreams. His drawings possess a subtlety yet broadcast emotions clearly; a single change in the set of Corinna's mouth takes her from doubtful to wistful in only two frames. This quick read will capture readers' sympathies with its everywoman heroine and quiet but powerful climax. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads