TINA'S MOUTH

In the tradition of Persepolis and American Born Chinese a wry and endearing high school heroine comes of age. Tina M. sophomore is a wry observer of the cliques and mores of Yarborough Academy and of the foibles of her southern California intellectual Indian family. She's on a first-name basis with Jean-Paul Sartre the result of an English honours class assignment to keep an 'existential diary'. Keshni Kashyap's compulsively readable graphic novel - with Mari Araki's sweet melancholy drawings - packs in existential high school drama from Tina getting dumped by her smart-girl ally to a kiss on the mouth (Tina's mouth but not technically her first kiss) from a cute skateboarder Neil Strumminger. And it memorably answers the pressing question: Can an English honours assignment be a fifteen-year-old girl's path to enlightenment?