There is, for example, a 2000 photograph of Mari, Jodie and a pivotal boyfriend, whose name is always scribbled out in red. The book also includes more realistic self-portraits, so that readers eventually get a somewhat stable sense of Mari’s physical appearance. They are also both represented by text written by Mari or reproduced from letters and journals. Sometimes they appear as these flower-outline blobs, sometimes as very simplified cartoon sketches. Because the book employs so many different art styles, its protagonists aren’t represented in any consistent way. This could be Mari’s head, or it could be Jodie’s. Half on the grass and half on the square, a vaguely face-like outline floats, filled with flowers. Within the white square, or panel, Mari’s hand is drawn poised over an open book. The story opens with an effort to write the book on one page you see a white square superimposed on a field of grass. But the end sprawls backward as a kind of erasure Mari finds in trying to write the book that the relationship has faded from memory. Out of the blue, Jodie phoned Mari and said she didn’t want to be friends anymore.
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