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Ghost World

3.91 of 5 stars 3.91 · rating details · 24,833 ratings · 776 reviews

Ghost World has become a cultural and generational touchstone, and
continues to enthrall and inspire readers over a decade after its
original release as a graphic novel. Originally serialized in the
pages of the seminal comic book Eightball throughout the mid-1990s,
this quasi-autobiographical story (the name of one of the protagonists
is famously an anagram of the author's nam...more

Paperback, 80 pages

Published April 1st 2001 by Fantagraphics (first published April 1st 1998)

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Aug 23, 2008 Kim rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: the-kids-are-all-right

I had heard great things about this and was on board until I found out it was a graphic novel. Okay, don't hate me, but something abou graphic novels turns me off. Right from the get-go. It's completely shallow. I wish I could tell you why. Maybe it has to do with the fact that when I was 16 my best friend was into them. And when I say 'into them' what I really mean is that she found a boy she liked who liked comics so she had to know absolutely everything there was to know about the genre and i...more

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Jan 30, 2008 Andy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: comix-novel

The worst thing that happened to “Ghost World” was that a movie was made of it, because it pawned the book effortlessly. Dan Clowes’ book was so cynical and condescending towards its subject matter that the film couldn’t help making the girls more likeable.

Case in point: when Enid and Rebecca are watching a lousy comic on television the Movie Enid says, “this guy rules, I want to totally do him”, it’s said with a dose of sarcasm and demented humor. The Book Enid says it with a jaded tone and a v...more

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Feb 08, 2010 jo rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to jo by: the intertubes

Shelves: graphic, kids

american representations of adolescents and post-adolescents in films and books have always left me cold, if not alienated. why do i have so little in common with these kids? why was my life and the lives of the italian teens i currently know and follow so vastly different? i blame american culture of violence and vice (for lack of a better world), kids' need to find themselves in drunkenness and drugs, when we had... what? what did we have? what do the italian kids i know have?

i think we had,...more american representations of adolescents and post-adolescents in films and books have always left me cold, if not alienated. why do i have so little in common with these kids? why was my life and the lives of the italian teens i currently know and follow so vastly different? i blame american culture of violence and vice (for lack of a better world), kids' need to find themselves in drunkenness and drugs, when we had... what? what did we have? what do the italian kids i know have?

i think we had, they have each other, large groups of kids roaming the city in various combos, girls, boys, girls and girls, boys and boys. i think we had mobility and cities designed for people not cars. we had walking distance and we had public transportation. also, we had spaces, public spaces, outdoor spaces designed for hanging out -- in neighborhoods (mainly in front of the church), in the city. lots of spaces. plazas, fountains, pedestrian-only streets, small public gardens (italy is lousy with public gardens, unlike its neighbors to the north), benches, stones, steps to buildings and monuments, sidewalks. there are people everywhere, the city is inhabited.

when i see kids represented in american films and books, i see a ton of emptiness. kids hang out in commercial not public spaces, because the concept of a well-tended, well-protected, accessible, attractive public space is pretty much non-existent. in my university, even the box office of the newly renewed football/baseball/whatever stadium is named after a donor. i honestly and sincerely anticipate that soon we'll have to preface a lecture with "this class is brought to you by...".

if you have nowhere to go, and if you can't go there anyway because you have no transportation except your parents, you hang out in malls, diners, ice cream parlors, fast food joints, bowling alleys, or the back of your school. the latter is maybe the best scenario. i cannot imagine a childhood so starkly defined by commerce. i know that kids everywhere breathe commerce, but i cannot imagine a childhood so controlled by commerce that there are literally no spaces that are free of it.

so this book got me down during its first half. i hate empty american cities, big and small, and kids lost in it. i hated the terrible disaffection, rage, and plain nastiness of enid and rebecca. i hate the heavily underscored lack of family life, this eternal american parentlessness -- the trope of the absent parent, independent as it is from the fact of the parent's physical existence.

but then i started feeling tenderness for the two girls, because of their tender love for each other, their tip-toeing around the conventions that allow its various modes of expression, the light narrative touches that convey how straying from the rigid boundaries of these conventions becomes just too much (a closing panel that simply says, "let go of my hand"). i also started feeling tenderness for the way in which the girls talk to each other through boys -- by talking about boys, by passing boys from one to the other, by obsessing over boys, by despising ugly boys. it's such a lonely and doomed love, so unfree to blossom, so constrained, it breaks your heart.

and at the end, of course, it withers and dies, not like a raisin in the sun, but like a dream that was squashed from the start. bleak, man.

i blame this on suffocating locales, sordid city aesthetics, mangled architecture, and a ton of institutionalized loneliness.

i wish our cities, our american cities, the very best, but i don't see how anything short of demolition and stark rebuilding will make them more friendly to kids, less conducive to such a powerful absorption of ugliness that life will be forever marked by it. after finishing the book i slept and i dreamed, as i heartbreakingly often do, of century-layered, beautiful cities, rambling living rooms for roamers, chatters, and lovers alike. (less)

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Jun 13, 2011 Cindy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novel

Don't hate me, Jayme! I liked it but didn't love it.

Two best friends since childhood fight but are inseparable sometime after high school but before college/work/life. They have no plans for the future, so they wallow in their silly lives, pushing around everyone around them. Really, they are flailing in that teenage angsty way.

Clowes captures the Essence of Hipster Friendship*. Everybody sucks, everything is lame - but if it's extremely lame, then it becomes cool again. It's up to each hipster...more

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Mar 02, 2011 Evan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: _lfpl-library, graphic-novel-or-comic, _less-than-100-pages, yearning, 2011-reads

I could easily see myself depicted in a panel in this lovely graphic novel, with its snarky young teen heroine Enid reading my review of it and saying something like: "I mean, what kind of loser dork has the time to write a *review* of a 20-year-old graphic novel. Probably some middle-age loser living in his mom's basement."

Actually, I have written Goodreads reviews in my mom's basement. So, touche' Enid.

But I am writing this one in my own home, the double-mortgaged one. So, sweet Enid, allow on...more I could easily see myself depicted in a panel in this lovely graphic novel, with its snarky young teen heroine Enid reading my review of it and saying something like: "I mean, what kind of loser dork has the time to write a *review* of a 20-year-old graphic novel. Probably some middle-age loser living in his mom's basement."

Actually, I have written Goodreads reviews in my mom's basement. So, touche' Enid.

But I am writing this one in my own home, the double-mortgaged one. So, sweet Enid, allow one chink to open in that wall of rebellion you've built of your nagging insecurities and youthful fears and have some slight sympathy for this middle-aged dork and allow him to praise you and the Ghost World that you inhabit.

First, Ghost World, the 2001 film adaptation of this 1990s graphical, is one of my favorite movies of the last decade. It was inevitable that I would read the original. At first, I wasn't liking the book as much as the film, but as I read, I was slowly captured by its spell, its mood, its wisdom.

There are substantial differences between this and the movie, so I'd recommend both, as adjunct and complementary works. The biggest difference is the prominence of the Bob Skeetes character in the movie (renamed Seymour and played by Steve Buscemi in the film). In the book, he is a minor character, and yet he looms as a kind of spectre over the whole thing. Clowes does not forget him, and by the end of the novel he comes back for a key scene. In the book he's a fortune-teller, which ties into the idea of the uncertain future that lingers hauntingly throughout the book.

As it happens, Enid is smarter than Skeetes, and she knows the future better than he does. And no wonder she is resistant to moving forward into it. She knows it is a banal one, in which friends drift apart. In which dreams, if one has them at all to start with, fade into the boring practicalities of survival and selling-out.

It is also a book about the hopelessness of recapturing the certainties of the innocent past. Of re-listening to old children's records to try to once again feel the wonder of a hopeful world, of re-visiting the tawdry tourist-trap dinosaur village in hopes of futilely reliving barely remembered wonders.

It is also about the casual cruelties of youth, the discovery of the blithe and heedless hurtfulness of casual insults. The realization that self-satisfying and self-satisfied sarcasm extracts its price, not just on others but on the wielder of the cosmic joke.

It is also about the sameness of places and people. And wishing it weren't so. About fake 50's nostalgia diners where the pop cultural mix is so fragmented and people's perceptions so blunted that nobody seems to realize that all the songs on the jukebox are from the 1960s.

It's about a place in the mind and the heart, where, despite all of this, there is a ghost bus that still, just maybe and just might, stop for us one last time and let us ride away to somewhere magical.

I loved this.(less)

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Jul 05, 2008 Bryce Wilson rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have a great affection for Ghost World in both book and movie form, and not just because half of the movie was shot like three blocks from my apartment (The movie theater Enid works at for awhile really is THAT pathetic).

It speaks truth to (lack of) power. Most films about Geeks and Geek Culture tend to give us the upper hand, even when they proclaim themselves observations. A book like High Fidelity gently questions are assumptions and styles. Ghost World slaps you upside the head, making no...more

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Feb 23, 2011 Djll rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: comix, movies

Clowes is immensely talented but his style doesn't quite ring my bell. Nevertheless, I just picked this up at Pegasus in Berkeley for less than 1/3 cover price. OH MY FUCKING GOD! I am such a loser, always talking about how I saved a few precious dollars on this or that piece of shit. My life has no meaning.

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Dec 20, 2008 Sharm Alagaratnam rated it 2 of 5 stars

Ghost World by Daniel Clowes has been the only comic book so far from the library that I haven't enjoyed completely. It was a pretty strong reaction as well, as while reading the book I felt an almost physical urge to put it down. I had to think about why this was so for quite a while before realizing that far from the book being bad, it was instead too good.

I'll explain. The book follows the lives of two teenage girls in smalltown America somewhere. Its anonymity is key to the atmosphere as the...more

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Apr 10, 2012 Robert rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novel

Reminiscent of Adrian Tomine's work in style.

If you have ever had the misfortune of sitting in an adjacent booth at a diner next to two loud, rude & obnoxious teen girls who would NOT shut up, then you can relate to Enid Coleslaw and Rebecca Doppelmeyer. These two girls have nothing nice to say about anyone. They ridicule everyone, bemoan the state of the world, and are all around little snots. Would you want to know these girls, hang out with them, be the recipient of their scathing abuse?...more

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Dec 17, 2012 Jason added it

Shelves: read-2010

This book is so brutally honest it can't fail to cut the reader a number of times. The sarcasm and ennui is pitch perfect and the desire to fit in as well as the loathing of those that do actually fit in hits home a little too much. The girls here have a toxic sort of relationship in which they live in jealousy and angst over the other but they are simultaneously their only support systems. Additionally, they are addicted to social interaction, but solely as a means of feeding their jokes at the...more

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Jan 09, 2013 Ben Labe rated it 3 of 5 stars

Two disaffected teens spend a summer together after finishing high school, hanging out at hipster joints where they ridicule and pull cruel pranks on the other clientele. These girls have very little to offer the world, yet they despise the imperfections that they project onto others. They are emotionally and sexually immature, but they don't seem in a hurry to educate themselves, and their psychological defenses are completely suited for lives spent wading through a pool of moral stagnancy. Des...more

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Nov 07, 2007 Lacey Louwagie rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: women who remember their best girlhood friends

Shelves: graphicnovels

I read this graphic novel after watching the movie of the same name. My main critique of it is that some of the teenagers look middle-aged and that there were places where frames seemed to be missing -- I think I would have been a little more disoriented without the movie to guide me. But other than that, I feel totally freaked that a man could write about bitter teenage girlfriends drifting apart with such skill, sensitivity, and accuracy. If you want a comparison, the novel definitely pierces...more

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Jan 18, 2009 Tim rated it 5 of 5 stars

In my opinion, Ghost World has the perfect relation between graphic novel and movie- they are separate entities, both with their own thing going on, both with artistic merit. The more I think about it, I'm not sure comics (or books) need to be adapted for the screen at all (says the kid who ruined several pairs of underwear during the LOTR years). Hrm. I guess books are better to adapt than comics being that comics already have a visual aspect. But that 'exit interivew' thing that Alan Moore did...more

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Mar 29, 2013 Michelle rated it 5 of 5 stars

Name: Michelle Muro
Citation: Clowes, D. (1998). Ghost world. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics.
Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction
Format: Graphic novel
Selection Process: YALSA website

Review:

Rebecca and Enid are two teenage girls who recently graduated from high school. They have been friends for years, but are starting to grow apart with the changes adulthood brings. They are sarcastic, biased, and sometimes harsh. There is not much of a plot, but rather a look into the every-day lives of the girls....more

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Dec 30, 2012 Peter rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels

After hearing and reading a lot of good things about this book, I was somewhat disappointed. My initial reaction to it was: "That's it?" It's like the Seinfeld of graphic novels; the majority of the story is about nothing in particular. That kind of character driven work is often a really good thing if you like the characters. Unfortunately, none of these characters really resonated with me. I think this is less the fault of the author--because the characters are well developed--and more that it...more

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Nov 12, 2012 Shaylan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, visual-storytelling

4.5/5

I remember seeing the VHS of the film adaptation sitting on the shelves at the local video store and wanting OH MY GOD SO BADLY to rent it. I never could get permission from my parents. Nevertheless, I eventually saw the movie and I can't remember it at all. It didn't leave a distinct impression on me.

At some point I became aware of graphic novels (something like 10 or 12 years ago), and then I became aware that this was a book first! Not just a movie! Wow! But I never thought to seek it ou...more

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Sep 25, 2012 Julka rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 52-books-2012, comics

Dzisiaj przeczytałam komiks o niczym.

Ghost world to historia dwóch przyjaciółek - Enid and Rebeki. Rebecca jest ładną dziewczyną, ale nie ma wyrazistej osobowości, dlatego ludzie jej nie zauważają. Pragnie miłości i jest gotowa się zakochać, nie ma przy tym wielkich wymagań.
Enid to zbuntowana nastolatka. Bunt jej jest oczywiście niedojrzały. Przejawia się przede wszystkim w odważnych fryzurach i strojach, agresywnym zachowaniu i obraźliwych odzywkach.

Obie snują się po miasteczku, widząc w każdy...more

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Sep 13, 2012 MissAnnThrope rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, graphic-novel, library-book, comics

Remember those angry, bitchy girls in high school, who sat around judging people and talking smack behind everyone's back? Okay, now imagine being locked in a box for an hour forced to listen to those jealous twits and you've got Ghost World in a nutshell.

I have been wanting to read Ghost World for ages. I stumbled across a copy of it at the library, so finally picked it up. I think if I had originally read this a decade ago, I might not have disliked the characters so much. Maybe I wasn't in th...more

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Aug 26, 2012 Harlan Rosen rated it 3 of 5 stars

In this case, the "I liked it" Goodreads equates with a 3-star rating is accurate.
I liked the Americanness of it. I liked the stylization. I genuinely associated with and believed in the main duo. I appreciated the nihilistic and existentialist (near the end) take on teen life. I thought it was pretty funny-- Enid and Rebecca are observant and complex individuals, unlike some other reviews here make them out to be. But they are certainly not akin to most of today's youth. Well, to be fair, they...more

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Aug 03, 2012 Linnea rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels, 2012

I remember back in 7th grade, I knew a girl who was obsessed with the film adaptation, and I thought it was weird and put it out of my mind. When I found out it was based on a graphic novel years later, I became curious. So I picked it up this summer and read it all in one sitting.

It's...interesting. Yes, the girls seem spoiled, apathetic, and sometimes as if they are trying to hard. But trying to hard to do what? In my opinion, I think it's a good commentary on the falling apart of a close high...more

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Jun 28, 2012 Bob Jones rated it 3 of 5 stars

Ghost World is a mix of Catcher in the Rye and Superbad: two best friends drift apart as they slowly, and somewhat unwillingly, make the transition into adulthood.

Unlike either of those, however, I found it very hard to care about these protagonists. That's not speaking to the quality of the writing, though. The dialogue is sharp and witty, without losing too much realism (I'm looking at you, Kevin Smith!), and I feel like I have a very good understanding of where these two main characters are c...more

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May 20, 2012 Brad rated it 3 of 5 stars

Ghost World by Daniel Clowes

Well crafted, but excruciating to read, as the characters are both unlikeable, but in desperate need of the reader's sympathy as they're so pathetic. Kelly and I talked about how much less likeable the characters are in the book than they are in the movie (and they aren't exactly loveable in that incarnation, either).

In fact, Clowes' entire world is rather pathetic. Not only are almost all of the people in it pathetic, the physical world is pathetic, too (strip malls,...more Ghost World by Daniel Clowes

Well crafted, but excruciating to read, as the characters are both unlikeable, but in desperate need of the reader's sympathy as they're so pathetic. Kelly and I talked about how much less likeable the characters are in the book than they are in the movie (and they aren't exactly loveable in that incarnation, either).

In fact, Clowes' entire world is rather pathetic. Not only are almost all of the people in it pathetic, the physical world is pathetic, too (strip malls, shitty diners, etc). This is, I presume, because it's written through the lense of Enid, though.

Enid's self hatred is even more evident in the original story than in the movie. There's nothing subtle about why she projects so much hatred onto, well, everything. She can't even muster something positive to say about her best friend, Rebecca, who in her own pathetic way desperately needs it. She attempts to get out of the mess by applying to school, but fails what I presume are her SATs. It never really says for certain. It's a nauseating gut punch when she gets the results of her letter and confesses to her father and his girlfriend, "I told you I wasn't smart enough to pass the test".

Rebecca's character as originally written is just pitiful. It's no wonder she's updated for the movie, as I don't think she would have worked on screen the way she was originally written. For starters, she's mostly a secondary character in the book. She has few modes: listening to Enid rant, agreeing with Enid's rant, saying a boy is cute, only to recoil when Enid calls him lame and, finally, pathetically whimpering about no one wanting her (boys/Enid/etc). That she plans on trying to follow Enid is understandable. Enid's brutal response is more or less the nail on Rebecca's self-esteem coffin. (That Enid didn't want her to come is also understandable, but her handling of it is all wrong.) Rebecca just latches on to Enid's big personality (which is mostly a facade, of course) and clings on for dear life. Completely stunted, perhaps at the point at which they became friends, or at the very least, long before the story starts.

The art could have been a little better (it was a tad lifeless, honestly) and the writing wasn't nearly as authentic as the reviews lead you to believe, but there's definitely something there in this quick read of a graphic novel (short story, really). It's a story with very little plot and unlikeable characters that was still enjoyable in its own way.(less)

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Apr 10, 2012 Tfitoby rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: graphic-novels

I'm not a mad crazy fan of graphic novels which should qualify that when I say that this is one of the best ones that I've read we're not comparing against the entire history of comics.

Instead I'm saying that out of the 100 or so that I have read this is one of the few that stands up to re-reading. I love looking at the art of Daniel Clowes in this one, the simple black and white images with a green shading throughout somehow manages to capture so much detail and mirrors the mood of the story.

I'...more

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Apr 03, 2012 Hannah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

I was walking through the library to kill time, and started to look in the graphic novel section. I saw the Ghost World movie a year or two ago, and decided the novel might be interesting. It is only 80 pages, so it made for a quick read.

Ghost World focuses on two girls who are past high school and pre-college who do pretty much whatever they please. I would say the ‘main’ character is Enid, who hates all men and pretty much everything else, too. The second character is Rebecca, the blonde on th...more I was walking through the library to kill time, and started to look in the graphic novel section. I saw the Ghost World movie a year or two ago, and decided the novel might be interesting. It is only 80 pages, so it made for a quick read.

Ghost World focuses on two girls who are past high school and pre-college who do pretty much whatever they please. I would say the ‘main’ character is Enid, who hates all men and pretty much everything else, too. The second character is Rebecca, the blonde on the cover, who sort of keeps Enid’s cynicism in check. They also have a few interesting side characters, like the clerk, John Ellis, their innocent friend Josh, and the creepy astrologer, Bob Skeetes, who comes to Enid’s garage sale for two hours and only buys a ten cent egg beater.

I get a strong cynical vibe from the story... possibly because Enid and Rebecca hate most everything they experience. One of the things they really find fascinating is a couple they see in a diner (Angel’s), whom they refer to as the Satanists. The only real friend the two have is Josh, an almost pure, innocent guy. They argue often over who should have sex with him, because they figure he is a virgin. The exploration of their friendship together and with Josh felt realistic and made the story richer.

I have been doing a project for one of my classes that involves looking at female friendships, and so this book was interesting. The novel looks really closely at what I think is a pretty typical friendship between girls. They like each other, but still worry that everyone likes the other one better. They keep secrets, gossip, contemplate the future, and do everything together.

I enjoyed the novel, partially due to the relatability of Enid and Rebecca — my good friend and I were similar to them in high school. There was a lot of tension in Ghost World, and I think this makes it rise above being a simple graphic novel. However, the characters make the plot hard to enjoy if you can’t appreciate being cynical.

I had to share one quote from the book that I really enjoyed:

“I wish I could just come up with one perfect look and stick with it… Like what if I bought some entire matching 1930′s wardrobe and wore that everyday… The trouble with that is you look really stupid and pretentious if you go a mall or a Taco Bell or something… And you have to act a certain way and drive an old car and everything and it’s a real pain in the ass!” – Enid

Overall, this was a pretty interesting slice of life story that I think many people could relate to. I don’t think it hurts to be a little cynical, and this story takes advantage of (and maybe goes a bit past) that idea. I wish the ending would have been a little more clear, but I guess I can't get everything I want -- I will have to be creative and think up an ending of my own that I like.(less)

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May 30, 2011 christa rated it 3 of 5 stars

I just stopped hating Daniel Clowes' graphic novel "Ghost World" like 7 minutes ago. Literally. I've had a long history of hating the listless bitches Enid and Rebecca and their ironic diner hopping, misfit hounding and personality contriving. But it just went away. Like a decade-old hate fever that finally broke.

Fact: My boyfriend and I rarely fight. So rarely that I can remember that we did have a fight in 2007 while watching the movie "Ghost World" about how much I hated the movie "Ghost Worl...more I just stopped hating Daniel Clowes' graphic novel "Ghost World" like 7 minutes ago. Literally. I've had a long history of hating the listless bitches Enid and Rebecca and their ironic diner hopping, misfit hounding and personality contriving. But it just went away. Like a decade-old hate fever that finally broke.

Fact: My boyfriend and I rarely fight. So rarely that I can remember that we did have a fight in 2007 while watching the movie "Ghost World" about how much I hated the movie "Ghost World." It was a lot of me ranting, not unlike Enid, and him confused at my outburst.
Other fact: I was drunk.

When a person decides to pull up a chair up to the whole graphic novels table, and when a person divulges that this new interest probably won't include books with Super Werewolves and Masked Crusaders, people already at the table will recommend "Ghost World." If a person adds a few graphic novels to her Amazon Wish List, Amazon will recommend "Ghost World." It is, apparently, part of the canon. Strangers will recommend "Ghost World." It might be the most readily available of graphic novels.

I got about a quarter of the way into "Ghost World" about two weeks ago, sighing and eye rolling all while getting really stoked about finally reading something I hate. I could really get in there and hate it super hard all over the internet. It's been far too long. I've been cursed by a steady stream of three-star or better picks. Blerg. Boring. I set "Ghost World" aside for whatever reason and when I picked it up again I started at the beginning. And ... nothing. No throbbing forehead veins. My blood didn't simmer. No eye rolling. I thought about Enid, her ever-changing hair and style statements, following people she believes are satanists around the grocery store to see what satanists eat and having a snarky comment and mean-spirited nickname about every person who falls into her field of vision.

Nothing. In fact, I laughed.

The story is mini chapters in the life of best friends Enid and Rebecca. They're droll and bored and boring and they sprawl on beds and talk and bitch about models in magazines and they go to diners and make up stories about the other regulars. Sometimes they wander around and do stuff. But mostly they're in this limbo between high school and college and so close they wonder if its healthy. They abuse the pushover guy friend. They dream of walking into a sex shop and looking around. At one point Enid really gets into the cartoonist Daniel Clowes.

Don't get me wrong. They are still unlikable little snots I'm glad I didn't sit next to in homeroom. But there are some truly great scenes. Enid tries to muster some romantic nighttime feelings for a teacher, testing and ditching out on different scenarios in her head when she's in bed -- including one that finds him fully clothed in the shower with her -- before finally falling asleep without consummating the sexy visual. Or, during a conversation about a guy Enid and Rebecca know who is totally into politics, Enid apes a conversation with him:

"Yeah Jason, ever since you stopped eating meat and bathing and started doing grafitti and fucking up ATM machines, the world has become a way better place."

So I stand corrected. "Ghost World" isn't terrible. It certainly isn't anything to fight about. (less)

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Dec 14, 2010 Elliot rated it 3 of 5 stars

I couldn't get through the movie, because I found Enid and Rebecca too irritating. Clowes' comic, however, seems much more tastefully presented. Although there are a number of relevant oddball characters (my absolute favorite being the man who sits on the bench waiting for a bus on a closed busline), this graphic novel is primarily an exploration of the crumbling relationship of two apathetic, disaffected teens.

The graphic novel succeeds most in its subtlety -- almost nothing happens over its 80...more

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Aug 29, 2009 Erik rated it 5 of 5 stars

Rereading this for at least the second time is like revisiting an old friend. It’s not that it necessarily gets better with age. Instead, it simply reminds one of how Clowes was able to take a very simple story – two friends that are forced to grow up a little over the summer after high school and before life really begins – and create his own quirky and signature magic.

Enid is still the wise-cracking quasi-goth/hipster wannabee, and Becky is still frozen in time as her plain Jane girl-next-doo...more

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May 03, 2009 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels

It's impossible that these weren't girls he knew, yet i think he made them up. They are so transparent, so 'high school', it breaches a fourth wall of fiction and you see right through, him; This is just stuff that happened to you, right?! That's the talent. The intellectual phrasings these girls use (at a Dinosaur miniature golf-course, "I remember this being so much bigger...Oh my God! I'm having a pseudo-religious experience right now.") Clowes doesn't skip out on minor details, he shows them...more

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Jun 08, 2009 Susie rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: quirky, arty girls.

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this is one of those books that forces me to marvel at the rare accuracy of middle-aged men able to represent the thought processes of young women in minor rebellion and the mundane appeal of their stupid, witty banter. in short, when i read this and when i re-read this twenty times over, i felt like i was reading a well documented account of day-to-day with my friends from when i was a teenager. truly awesome.

also, it's a comic book. i adore dan clowes' drawing style, but that's apparent.

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Feb 19, 2013 Matt Raymond rated it 5 of 5 stars

I had seen the movie first & at that point I wasn't into comic books like I am now. So when I saw it at my library I decided to read it. Well, the movie just became something separate & I fell in love with this story on its own.

The story is about Enid Coleslaw & Becky Doppelgänger. Best friends dealing with post high school malaise by being generally awful people. I'm not sure where anyone else went to high school, but I knew teenagers exactly like Becky & Enid. In fact I was fri...more

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About Daniel Clowes

Daniel Gillespie Clowes is an Academy Award-nominated American author, screenwriter and cartoonist of alternative comic books. Most of Clowes' work appears first in his ongoing anthology Eightball (1989-present), a collection of self-contained narratives and serialized graphic novels. Several of these narratives have been collected published separately as graphic novels, most notably Ghost World....more

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Quotes from Ghost World

“Everybody just lets the media do their thinking for them... that's why you'll never hear any reggae on the radio!” — 8 people liked it

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