Anya’s Ghost

I was excited to include a graphic novel on my reading list this year, and specifically planned to read Anya’s Ghost, the story of a teenager who falls down a well and becomes friends with a ghost, in October for its spooky Halloween qualities. I’ve been reading a lot of creepy books lately – first the vampire novel The Historian, followed by the zombie love story Warm Bodies and the supernatural Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. I’m not quite sure where all of this weird sci-fi/supernatural/other-worldly stuff is coming from, but as next month I’m reading the science fiction classic Dune I’m expecting it to just get weirder. Tina Fey’s Bossypants in December is going to come as a well-deserved respite from the land of speculative fiction.

Anyway, I read Anya’s Ghost in about an hour and a half or so – it’s over 200 pages but as it’s a graphic novel it goes rather quickly, and felt like watching a short film. As I said, it’s a story about a girl who befriends a ghost (not at all like Casper, if that’s what you’re thinking), but more than that it’s about a Russian girl growing up in America and trying to deal with her family, high school, and dreaded runs in gym class. Over the course of the story she learns her lessons – that people aren’t always what they seem, that family is important, that maybe you shouldn’t walk around with a person’s bone around your neck on a string so you have your own pet ghost to help you cheat on exams. Although that last one seemed like a no-brainer to me, but to each his own.

I enjoyed this book, which reminded me a lot of Persepolis, in both it’s leading character and it’s simply drawn grayscale artwork. It’s a lovely ghost story for October, equal parts charming and creepy.