Reviews for Trailers

The average rating for Trailers based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-07-21 00:00:00 ktqxqtcy catuiile Josh is a high school teenager who wants to do the usual things like have friends, go to parties, get a girlfriend, but his mother who uses and sells drugs as well as her body, gets into an argument with her pimp and ends up killing him. Josh is put into a position where he has to bury the body outside of their trailer park, and in addition, he has to be a surrogate father/mother to his younger siblings, and take care of such things as grocery shopping and cleaning. The nightmare gets worse when he best friend, a boy his own age (around 16 or so) becomes his mother's new boyfriend, while his mother's drug use gets out of control. The only ray of light in his life is a girl at school who likes him but she doesn't know anything about his home life. Will Josh escape this nightmare and find a life of his own? Mark Kneece has written a compelling and nightmarish account of an adolescence skewed. Josh is a likeable and sympathetic protagonist and his struggle for a normal life for both himself and his brothers and sisters is noble and brave. His relationship with the girl he befriends is also beautifully rendered, as they slowly become close and fall in love. The claustrophobia of life in a trailer park and crushing defeat of living below the poverty line are dealt with superbly and I definitely felt what it was doing to Josh and his mounting frustrations. Julie Collins does a great job drawing this book, her style reminding me of manga comics but Americanised to suit the story. I really liked the book. It was definitely not uplifting until the last few pages but I couldn't put it down as the troubles heaped upon Josh just grew and grew and the nightmare became more protracted, more depressing. It was like a Thomas Hardy novel in that sense like Jude the Obscure, however unlike Hardy it was easy to read and enjoyable. An excellent comic book in the Southern Gothic tradition and a great read.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-08-22 00:00:00 Kevin Wright Great art, mediocre, slightly too broad story, but gets at something about how good intentions both aren't and are everything, somehow, especially when you're a troubled (or untroubled) teen. Worth reading for that message, I think.