• Title: The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures
• Author: Phoebe Gloeckner
• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Frog Books (November 14, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583940634
• ISBN-13: 978-1583940631

I love the mix of graphics and story.  This is a hard book to read from a content perspective.  Its part graphic novel and its written as the diary or notebook of a 15 year old girl.  She does drugs.  She’s sleeping with her mother’s boyfriend.  Her mother drinks.  Her sister is a “good girl.”  The main character, Minnie Goetze, a Jewish girl living in San Francisco, has a fling with a lesbian.  The cast of characters could be formulaic but its not – there’s a gritty and real quality to the writing.  The comics are generally drawn similarly to R. Crumb.

Its very painful to read but its also a really great read, and the graphics add a great deal to the work.