Two German siblings, 12-year-old Tâm and 14-year-old Dennis Nguy?n, encounter a young Vietnamese woman in trouble in a flea market parking lot. When Tâm’s spy movie-obsessed schoolmate, Alex, discovers an abandoned backpack with a photo of a happy couple with Tâm’s address on the back, it will lead the two to discover a severed finger. Worried, Tâm searches for the desperate woman, aided by her reluctant brother, and eventually finds Hoa Bin, who escaped from her kidnapper — who’s still tracking her down. Drawn to Hoa Bin, Tâm vows to save her — even if she has to break her stern-but-loving mom’s rules, dodge the bad guys in wild chases through the Berlin streets, and combine the forces of Marina, the Nguy?ns’ tough-chick neighbor, Jutta, an elderly retired actress, a rollerblading girl gang, and many others to do so. In Ross’s empathetic, loose-but-controlled lines, cartoonishly expressive kids interact against and within the realistically depicted urban environments, given texture and grit by screen-tones. Nirvana is Here is a contemporary crime thriller that has adventure, diasporic, coming-of-age, and love story elements, set in Berlin’s working-class Lichtenberg district against a backdrop of very current social issues.
Details
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Format: Trade Paperback
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Creators: (W/A/CA) Mikael Ross
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Pages: 352 · Trim: 6.75 x 9.5 in
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Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
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