Reviewed by Marlene Ziobrowski

What is particularly fine in [Skim] is the balance between what gets said and what is left unsaid. Usually in a graphic novel, it seems that balance is arrived at by what the words tell and what the pictures show. But in this book, the play is much more than this doubling it's also the play between Skim's words themselves-the sharp sweet and painful words in a Grade 10 kid's diary, bold one instant ("my school = goldfish tank of stupid" she tells us, and we laugh out loud reading her assessment), shy, circling and withholding the next ("Technically nothing has happened" she tells us, with no elaboration that would feed our curiosity about what actually happened, and so brings to mind our own elisions in remembered adolescent diaries).

Skim, commenting on the psychology of friends and school associates, shows insight and sharp wit. We want to know how she sees the world. When describing the depth of her own experience of desire, however, words are sometimes crossed out and finally come to a full stop. "So these are my actions. . . so be it" she writes in her diary: her Wiccan spell of intent. And at this moment we see her on her bed, arm on her diary, unmoving: these actions she's (not) writing about-and more to the point her intent concerning them-are the secret and sacred centre of the book. And at this centre both Skim's words and the book's images hold the secret close.

What is so delicious about this withholding is that it allows us to worry less about "what actually happens" (and so nicely sidesteps the reams of issues the one would expect when talking about desire between students and their teachers-never mind queer desire between students and their teachers-never mind queer desire both requited and somehow not between perhaps queer students and their perhaps queer teachers) and leaves us to engage more intensely with Skim's experience of the effects what did or didn't happen. And because she is such a compelling character, this is exactly what we want to do.So lucky us.

Back to top

Reviewed by D. J. Sylvis

Skim is a beautifully-illustrated, deeply touching story of a teenage girl (Kimberly Keiko Cameron, nicknamed 'Skim' in the casually cruel way of children) taking her first exploratory steps toward the big mysteries of life-love, death, spirituality-and, of course, finding that none of them are as easy to understand as she might hope. This isn't so much a "coming of age" story-there's no hopeful resolution to leave things feeling artificially bright-as it is a story of being a certain age and all of the gut-wrenching, soul-searching difficulty that almost always entails.

Jillian Tamaki's art is absolutely gorgeous, reminiscent of the best of classic illustration or comic-strip work from decades past. The faces of the characters are particularly real and expressive, and for the most part the poses she puts them in are evocative and believable. Nature imagery is used extensively, from the blowing leaves on the first page to the retreat into the urban wilderness of a ravine at the end, and the use of light and shadow in these images is exquisite.

The story makes a fairly commonplace life feel compelling (and really, all lives have a story like that somewhere inside them), and I found myself completely drawn in by the main character. Her voice was very real. However, the rest of the characters seem really reined in by comparison. (We don't see even a glimpse of the internal life of anyone else, and while that may be accurate to the portrayal of the life of a teenager, it can sometimes become frustrating. There were also several plot points that came in out of nowhere, or else fizzled out in a similarly unfocused manner.)

I would definitely recommend this book, particularly as a work with real visual depth, but I am left wishing that the writing had more of the artwork's definition.

Back to top

Reviewed by Ali Kira Grotkowski

"Why do the students call you Skim?"

"Because I'm not." pg. 27

Kimberly Keiko Cameron, a.k.a. Skim, attends tenth grade at a Toronto-area private all-girls school in 1993. She and her best friend, Lisa Soor, find all things Wicca fascinating. Both would-be goth girls want to be real witches. However when a classmate's ex-boyfriend kills himself, and Skim falls in love with her English teacher, things get a great deal more complicated.

"Dear Diary, Today Lisa said, 'Everyone thinks they are unique.' That is not unique!!" pg. 5 Mariko and Jillian Tamaki's words and drawings balance each other incredibly well, immersing us in the complicated world of a 16-year old. Mariko Tamaki's text is raw and simple, telling directly what Skim feels and thinks. Each of Jillian Tamaki's drawings adds meaning, allowing us to read between the lines of Skim's diary entries, seeing what happens around her. Composed with a balance between different perspectives, verbal and visual, the graphic novel focuses in on small details that make up Skim's experiences. Each frame, like a well-timed camera angle, allows the reader a new glimpse of Skim's world, providing a full and unique vision of what it means to grow up.

"I went as the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz. Everyone at the party was a ballerina or a figure skater." pg. 83

Skim sinks further and further into depression, feeling that she is unable to fit in: she isn't a slim Caucasian beauty like many of her classmates. Instead, she thinks about the pain that suicide causes, and tries to find a place for herself, where she belongs.

"I think everything you do and everything people do to you leaves a mark, or at least it affects who you are." pg.125

I grew up feeling like a square peg in a round hole: like Skim, I was half-Asian, growing up surrounded by seeming uniformity. Teasing was inevitable, as were the more painful behaviours of other teen girls. If only I had read this book when I was a teen, perhaps I would have felt less alone.

"Decided that stitches are definitely cooler than broken bones. Should have fallen on beer bottle." pg. 8

While I identify with this book because of Skim's depression and alienation from the rest of her classmates, it is more than just a novel about not fitting in. A glimpse into the teen world of angst and emotion, the book spans tough and varied themes including: suicide, divorce, sexual preference, injury, cliques, identity, religion, academics, depression, weight, rebellion, alcohol and even Shakespeare.

"But almost all the cards = change." pg. 126

Not just a book about Kimberly Keiko Cameron, Skim is a story we can all relate to. A journey into Skim's diary, its portrayal of high school, is so real that I could not put it down.

Back to top

Reviewed by Robert Earl Stewart

Self-congratulatory alienation and teenaged ennui are as much a part of graphic novels as they are high school.

With Skim, Mariko Tamaki (words) and Jillian Tamaki (drawings) have created an almost relentlessly depressing paean to the graphic novel genre, taking heavy cues from the world weary, voyeuristic loners of Adrian Tomine and the hapless freaks of Daniel Clowes.

Everyone knew a Skim Cameron, the book's eponymous central character, in their heady and dramatic high school years. She's the kind of would-be-Wiccan who has to put her altar and spells away when she's "too screwed for school to be a witch right now." Who trips over her altar before the first panel is drawn, breaking her arm-a serendipitous fall that leads to her connection with the only other student in her all-girl school who can pull her out of a depression that deepens with each pencil stroke.

Jillian Tamaki's strangely stark and whimsical drawings, whether taking the reader down wind swept autumn streetscapes, or lingering on a half-eaten plate of Chinese food, are always intimate and emotional, riffing on the morbid musings of Skim's diary, or her non-committal verbalizations, as provided by Mariko Tamaki.

It's refreshing to come across a book that deals with the topic of teen depression and suicide so bluntly, tearing down the sugar coat. What's that? Suicide? Yes-the driving force behind Skim's plot is a dead boy who never actually appears in its pages. Can suicide be thwarted with a scholastically organized 'celebration of life' and an outburst of girl power esprit de corps? Can meaning be found in. . . anything? In Skim, those in need of healing have to find their own spiritual level, even if it means withdrawing further from the madding, kilt-wearing crowd.

Back to top

Reviewed by Alixandra Bamford

Skim is a multifaceted tale about friendship, communication (or lack thereof), and the adolescent's desperate quest for purpose.

The protagonist is Kimberly Keiko Cameron: insightful and, at least to her diary, honest, but in need of answers, which are in short supply. It is her frank commentary that drives the narrative, presenting a tangle of very human characters, all struggling in different directions, all lying to themselves in different, heartbreaking ways.

Somewhat as outsider, Kim observes the alternately humorous and infuriating antics of her schoolmates as they muddle through grief, following the suicide of a male student. Simultaneous to this, two of Kim's interpersonal relationships take troubling turns: originally innocuous meetings with her English teacher, Ms. Archer, become romantically charged; and interactions with her best friend, Lisa, become increasingly strained.

The fluid illustrations are charming and evocative, the characters depicted memorable, the facial expressions-amusement, weariness, perplexity-priceless. Jillian Tamaki captures beautifully the subtleties of human body language, and keeps the visuals naturally flowing and dynamic.

Skim does not demand of the issues addressed reason or resolution-it simply accepts that understanding is never complete. For me this is its greatest source of potency.

Back to top

Reviewed by Jessica Dolan

[This] collaboration between writer Mariko Tamaki and artist Jillian Tamaki is an immersive delight. Skim not so much captures, as channels, the experience of outsider girlhood. There is an engaging looseness of line, both prosaic and graphic, which allows for a beautifully intimate rendering of adolescence.

Characters in this novel are above all recognizable, ranging from the familiar icons of bitter divorcees and blustering fathers, to the romantic theatre teacher and even the awkward Skim, thick-legged and uncomfortable in her school uniform.

Drawn in black and white, Skim is not stark, but breathes through soft greys. This warmth lends a 'trueness' to the depictions of faces and bodies, further emphasizing the uncanny nature of this work. This is a book whose aesthetic contributes to its own subject matter. Medium is never far from the message, for just beneath the slipcover is an entirely different doorway into this graphic novel. The spine of the book reads 'Skim's Journal-Private Property!!' a variant on the perspective offered by the elegant, musing book jacket.

Social elements such as questions of teenage suicide, race, and coming out, are folded into Skim's narrative, neatly incorporated and touched upon but never investigated in any concrete sense. These are the peripherals. For Skim, the vital narratives of love, magic and belonging are those we are given the most insight into. Always faithful to teenage whims, we are privy to the crossed out and re-thought statements in Skim's journal, as well as larger plot moments which the narrator herself does not comment on, seemingly unaware that we are even watching. There is an eerie voyeuristic quality to this work, as though we have found a window into Skim herself.

The chapters of this graphic novel follow the seasons, using a classic motif of cyclical change. The essences of teenage change and inventiveness, fixation and freedom, are channeled through this memorable work. Skim perfectly encapsulates that unnameable quality of awkward, fantastic youth.

Back to top

Reviewed by Kari Trogen

Reading Mariko and Jillian Tamaki's graphic novel Skim is like opening a shoebox of folded loose leaf notes, sifting through mementos of your own adolescence and feeling again, for an hour or two, what it's like to be sixteen and searching.

From the first "Dear Diary," we are immersed in the life of Kim "Skim" Keiko Cameron. It is the shifting life of a child of divorce, of an Asian-Canadian in a predominantly white private girls' school, of a "not slim" Goth among ballerinas and figure skaters, of a dabbler in Wicca who crushes on a female teacher. Stepping into Kim's shoes, we follow an outsider through the "goldfish tank of stupid" that is teenage girl mob mentality, seeing something "way more complicated" beneath a façade of public mourning.

Her world feels especially familiar to a Canadian reader; Kim keeps her altar of precious things on a shawl from Kensington Market, while the popular girls emulate Elizabeth Manley. Anyone at all acquainted with Toronto can appreciate the humour of a Wiccan coven meeting being held, anticlimactically, "in Scarborough!"

With her dialogue, Mariko perfectly captures high school hallway talk, often banal but sometimes completely frank, while Jillian's illustrations are full of movement, detail and expression. If you look closely, the scenes offer little, hidden treats: a bar of deodorant labelled "teen spirit," or the figure of a cat peering through a doorway or nestled in a ball on a bed. On the rare pages where images stand alone, we feel the silence of a stolen or sacred experience-a kiss in the woods, and a lonely bus ride to find an address torn from the phonebook.

Kim's moments of transience and uncertainty are counterposed by wonderfully still, lazy moments in time-staying "very still on the couch all day," falling asleep on a gym mat, watching the minutes change on a bedside alarm clock, listening to the night sounds of the city. "You are never really alone in the city at night," she says. "There are always taxi drivers, coffee shop people, the 7-Eleven guy, people in their homes, watching talk shows. . . It just feels lonely."

Skim is irreverent, poignant, and utterly truthful. Turning the last page, you are so engrossed in this girl's story that you are reluctant to leave her behind.

Back to top

Reviewed by Jaya Karsemeyer

Skim is a graphic novel about a troubled teen. But it feels so wrong to say that. All the tropes of teen fiction, the stuff that makes you think, "Oh, I guess that's what they want to be teaching the kids these days," or, "This is some old person trying way too hard to mimic adolescence," are absent. This is a story to make you remember your own adolescence in all its complexity. You may not have dabbled in the occult or experimented in transgressive sexuality (but you probably did) but you will remember your perception of an exasperating adult world and push-pull of every minor and major friendship.

In the first few pages, the protagonist, "Skim," outlines her family situation. A few frames describe her divorced parents: the first with a framed portrait of the happy couple, a strewn mess around it, the second a mom-and-daughter lonely dinner, the third is mum washing up the dishes and referring to dad as an asshole. Under her word-bubble is Skim's summary: "My parents = serious issues."

But perhaps this isn't the best example. "Issues" might sound like a dated teen-ism. I would have to add all the detail of the character we grow to know in Skim. A complicated character almost unnoticed at school and home aside from her grieving school's obsession with suicidal tendencies. Skim's view of the world is bold and breathing-from best friend betrayal to the best sort of love-revelry. Author-illustrator cousins Mariko and Jillian Tamaki help us remember just how that felt, and how painfully hysterical it was. Skim decodes a teacher's comment: "Last week in class, Ms. Archer said I have the eyes of a fortune teller. Lisa said that means I wear too much eyeliner."

As a teacher and a Toronto-phile, I love the presence of our city-Royal St. George's College, Kensington Market, and Scarberia-the only mark of it not being entirely contemporary is that you can still smoke at Tastee's.

I would bring this book to the classroom as a central investigation into grieving, depression or a unit on "the outsider" (when I was in grade ten this was a board-wide year-long theme). Some teachers may be uneasy introducing two main characters who smoke, and (spoiler warning!) one who makes out with her English teacher, but I am of the opinion that the more we bring "cachet cool" characters to the classroom, the less cachet they carry.

Overall, Skim was hilarious, moving and insightful to adolescence in the way that Lynda Barry (Ernie Pook's Comeek and the Marlys stories) reminds us of our most magical, formative moments of childhood. I recommend this to Toronto-lovers, lovers, Nostalgiacs, drama queens, introverts and filmophiles alike.

Back to top