[I've been
reading]
I Never Liked You

I remember not liking this little comic very much at all when I read it serialized in Yummy Fur. I like it more now. The drawings are a bit on the scratchy side, but the plot comes through if you have all of the stories to read side by side. This collection’s topic seems to be Brown’s experiences with girls from when he was too young to care much about them until he was older and cared quite a lot about them. In particular, there is one girl who likes him very much, and another girl who he likes very much. He juggles these relationships the way any high school boy might, badly. At the same time, his mother sickens and dies and he grows into what some might call a handsome young man. Brown portrays himself as a disaffected adolescent, so you don’t get as much of a feel for him as a person the way you do with Thompson in Blankets. I’m not sure I would go out of my way to purchase this book, but I am glad I read it.