“Everybody’s got an ex. And at some point in time, everybody’s been one too.” —Leanne Shapton, Was She Pretty?

From Leanne Shapton’s site: Excerpts from Was She Pretty?

From Publishers Weekly:

Illustrator Leanne Shapton’s debut reads like a graphic-novel-cum-children’s-book: each spread includes one or more scratchy, b&w line drawings plus short, facing-page, poetryesque texts. Its content, though, leans much more toward Sex In the City than Shel Silverstein, exploring conflicting feelings aroused in women by their boyfriends’ ex-lovers. It’s narrated (and drawn) by a sharp but weary onlooker who is very intimate with all the principles, who seem to form a loose circle of friends. 
Shapton also captures a complex brew of nostalgia, lingering attachment, relief, rage and intoxication harbored by the men: they keep letters, hairclips, phone numbers, and are occasionally also honest with themselves. In a serial description of Margaret’s adventures reading her boyfriend Scott’s journals, which deatail his past relationships, “Scott described seeing Diane on the subway with another man, and feeling jealous, but sorry for the man.” Diane looks very mean, and the book is pitch perfect from start to finish. (Nov.) 

(Source: juliettetang)