Through intense, diarylike chapters chronicling Charlie's journey, the author captures the brutal and heartbreaking way 'girls who write their pain on their bodies' scar and mar themselves, either succumbing or surviving. Feeling rejected, Charlie, an artist, is drawn into a destructive new relationship with her sexy older co-worker, a 'semifamous' local musician who's obviously a junkie alcoholic. But things don't go as planned in the Arizona desert, because sweet Mikey just wants to be friends. After spending time in treatment with other young women like her-who cut, burn, poke, and otherwise hurt themselves-Charlie is released and takes a bus from the Twin Cities to Tucson to be closer to Mikey, a boy she 'like-likes' but who had pined for Ellis instead. Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street. Readers will be demanding the next installment as they close this one.Ī necessary start, with intriguing hints at action and weirdness to come.Īfter surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself. Animator Puvilland’s full-color illustrations are appropriately wild, jagged, and threatening. Another spill in North Korea, Lexa’s talking doll, and the effects of the spill on survivors are hinted at as the action progresses. Bestselling prose novelist Westerfeld kicks off a graphic-novel series of dark sci-fi adventures set in the very near future and sets up an interesting milieu. When a collector bypasses the tough-as-nails white teen’s middleman and reveals he’s been cheating her, Addison takes on a mission for the collector that will put her in extreme danger…but may pay enough to get her out of the game for good. Addison sneaks past checkpoints on her motorbike to take pictures and sell them on the black market to support herself and her younger sister, Lexa, who hasn’t spoken since the spill.

The rats might chase you, and the cats might sound like they’re speaking, but there are also nightmare beasts on the prowl. Most of the residents still exist, but they’re “meat puppets,” floating, glowing, and unresponsive.

Nanotech outbreak? Nuclear accident? Alien invasion? Trans-dimensional breach? Anyone who knows isn’t saying. Three years ago something happened to Poughkeepsie, New York. Taking photos of the dangers in the Spill Zone can be deadly, but it pays the bills.

Spill zone