Bad Houses

author: Sara Ryan

name: Wayne

average rating: 3.72

book published: 2013

rating: 4

read at: 2014/01/21

date added: 2014/01/21

shelves: graphic-novels

review:

Bad Houses explores our connection to the things that shape our lives and what happens to them when we're gone or the things take over our lives. What we treasure and feel is so important loses it's meaning when we're gone. Treasuring too many things can have it's own burdens as the stuff takes over. This book takes place in the small fictional town of Failin, Oregon where the characters have intertwining stories and lives.



Lewis and his mother, Cat, curate and run estate sales. Items are marked for sale and people show up to buy. The book shows the usual group of people who try to work angles. There is an antique store owner who tries to hide things for the half off sale. There are people who try to put stickers on items that are not for sale. One day Lewis meets a woman named Anne who likes photographing empty spaces. Anne breaks into empty spaces to hang out because her mother is a hoarder.



The title refers to houses that are cluttered after a death, or the kinds of bad things that realtors have to clean up, but it also refers to broken lives and the things people try to do to fill them and fix them. The art by Carla Speed McNeil is quite good and the story by Sara Ryan has a desperation and poignancy that I found moving.



I was given a review copy of this graphic novel by Diamond Book Distributors and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for letting me review this graphic novel.





via Wayne's bookshelf: read http://ift.tt/LRkad4