This should have taken me no time to read as it's an 80 page graphic novel but I had to read it over the course of three days because it was just so bad. I couldn't relate to any of these characters because they were all so whiny. I don't know anyone who acted like this or talked like this no matter how cynical and ~cool~ they were trying to be. I didn't feel like Clowes was able to capture the relationship of two teenage girl friends very well, but after reading some of the other reviews who say it matched them well, maybe it just didn't work for me since there were no parallels between my friends and me and Enid and Rebecca.

I felt like I had to finish it even though I hated it since it was so short, and really I'm glad I did since it's such a popular graphic novel, but I did not enjoy any aspect of it at all.

for some reason this made me sad - i just kept asking “is this really what im like?”
i am always wary of books about teenage girls written by adult men

i read a bunch of reviews taking about how pessimistic and annoying and unlikeable the main girls are, but like
oh well ? maybe it’s so nihilist on purpose and i don’t think every female character has to be likable and happy
maybe this is just “the stranger” but teenage girls <3

3.5/5

drivel

I read this graphic novel after watching the movie of the same name. My main critique of it is that some of the teenagers look middle-aged and that there were places where frames seemed to be missing -- I think I would have been a little more disoriented without the movie to guide me. But other than that, I feel totally freaked that a man could write about bitter teenage girlfriends drifting apart with such skill, sensitivity, and accuracy. If you want a comparison, the novel definitely pierces the heart just a little more sharply, although the movie does a decent job of holding the tone. The ending makes more sense in the book, and I like endings that make sense.

Read this for Ladies Comic Book Club night, 8/17/2016 at a coffeehouse. Again, a wonderful batch of nerdy ladies, real friend potential!

I didn't like this book. I thought the characters were super judgy and depressed and depressing. Their relationship didn't make much sense to me and I was both sad and angry at how it ended. The language was vulgar and the story had no plot.
We spent a good portion of discussion on how much the author was trying to poke fun of this relationship, and it's obvious that the world and environment is a satire. But did he really think this is how teen girls relate to each other? Did he think that it was a statement on life and teens and how things were in 90s America? Did he think that every female friendship had moments questioning the sexuality and quality of that friendship?
It was nice to hear that pretty much all the other ladies didn't like it either, though we were a loud voice at the start, so maybe anyone who did like it felt that they couldn't speak up.

This was really readable but I have no idea what it was actually about??? And the characters were pretty horrible people.

Soft four stars. I thought the back half was better than the first. Some people don’t like “stories about nothing” but “stories about nothing” are usually just stories about relationships. I like the dynamic between Enid and Rebecca but it felt like we barely scraped the surface of that in the last 25%. Just wish there had been more of that sooner.

I was so excited to read this for so long, but it's definitely just not my cup of tea.