Sloth

Troubled teenager Miguel Torres has had it with life. The only alternative he sees is to willfully slip into a coma. But one year later, Miguel becomes a walking urban legend after he wakes up virtually unchanged -- except for his sloth-like pace. Soon, a haunted lemon orchard, the mysterious goat man, and murder will collide as Miguel, his girlfriend Lita and their best friend Romeo take on the teenage wasteland that is suburbia in the 21st century.

Will Miguel find love? Or has he risen from his slumber just to end up another rock and roll suicide? In this hypnotic, coming-of-age tale, Gilbert Hernandez deftly defines what it means to truly be alive in a land where life is not precious.

Grade 10 Up—Disillusioned high school student Miguel lives in a typical small town, and he is filled with ennui and restlessness. He wills himself into a coma to escape-and wills himself out, one year later. He resumes his normal life with his friend Romeo and girlfriend, Lita. One night, the trio venture out into their town's lemon orchards to investigate an urban legend about a goat man who can supposedly charm someone into switching lives with him. There, they find that there is some truth to the legend. Hernandez has crafted an exceptional story with a brilliant twist, and it will most likely lend itself to multiple readings. The three main characters' love triangle, combined with their rock-and-roll lifestyles, will attract teens, and the compelling plot will keep them engaged. Cursing and mild sexual situations earn this book its publisher-designated "mature" rating. Hernandez has splendidly encapsulated all of the verisimilitude and angst of life in a small town and added the perfect ending.—Jennifer Feigelman, Goshen Public Library and Historical Society, NY
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Starred Review. The much heralded Love & Rockets cartoonist turns in his first original graphic novel and it showcases a creator still making vital work after two decades. The story is of young people too creative, too smart and too passionate for the constraints of suburbia. Miguel Serra wakes up from a yearlong coma, slower physically but not mentally. He is literally out of step with the rest of the world, a perfectly disaffected youth. Miguel, his friend Romeo and girlfriend Lita use rock 'n' roll, urban legends and sex to feel alive. It leads to a love triangle that complicates things nicely. Hernandez takes a big gamble in the middle of the book by having everyone change roles in the story. It's unclear at first whether it pays off, but eventually the reader sees the characters from different angles, making the humanity in the story stronger as our sympathies are challenged. Hernandez has been compared to García Márquez, and uses heavy symbolism, in this case the image of a lemon orchard, which represents both the unconscious and how plant life makes the rest of the world look artificial. Sloth packs a lot of emotion and complicated storytelling into an unusual tale. (July)
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*Starred Review* Love and Rockets co-creator Hernandez takes a break from chronicling the lives of the inhabitants of the Latin American village of Palomar and their stateside relatives to create a brand-new set of characters. The title of his book about them refers to troubled teen Miguel Serra, who reacts to his broken home and the vapidity of suburban life by willing himself into a coma. He emerges a year later, walking at a glacial pace that leads other kids to tauntingly call him Sloth--which happens to be the name of the rock band he had formed with girlfriend, Lita, and mutual friend Romeo. When the three conduct a Blair Witch-like investigation of a lemon orchard said to be haunted by an eerie Goatman who can inhabit the bodies of his victims, they stumble onto the truth behind the urban legend. Hernandez developed his Palomar cast over the course of two decades, but in Sloth he has created a trio of vivid, sympathetic characters and an equally convincing milieu right off the bat, as well as sequences, particularly the nocturnal scenes in the mysterious orchard, as pictorially gorgeous as anything he's ever drawn. Given his masterful visual chops, that's saying something. Gordon Flagg
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