While reading, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Gooch's style reminded me of Tillie Walden's (who wrote On a Sunbeam, one of my recent favorites), both the art and the intensity of the relationships. Gooch struggles a little with closeups of his characters, exaggerating their features almost to the point of (unintentional, I believe) grotesqueness, but with time that will improve (or has improved? It's been two years...). They both use atmospheric, muted color palettes but know how to make a panel pop, both emotionally and artistically (the two scenes reproduced on the cover are perfect examples).

Jane is living a dead-end life, suffering from money troubles, her parent's relationship falling apart, and her relationship stagnating. She can't wait to make a change, even if it's just moving out of her parent's house to somewhere she can barely afford (to which I can relate). When her high-school friend Natalie comes home from Japan, where she's made a life for herself as a model, Jane's desperation and bitterness reach a boiling point.

High-school relationships are always fraught after graduation, especially when lives diverge so wildly. While Jane has been stagnating back in Australia, Natalie has been lonely and alienated in Japan, aching to return to the familiar.

The betrayals do truly sting, partly for how mundane and unavoidable they are. Jane doesn't really care about Ben anymore, so when Natalie unburdens her secret, it's nothing for Jane to manipulate him and cut him out of her life. When Jane sees her opportunity and takes it (with a beautiful panel by Gooch of her taking a photo with her eyes shaded), you know she's making everything more difficult for herself but you understand every reason why.

And, just like in life, there are no happy endings or tied up threads. Ben is abandoned and not a threat, Natalie is even more alienated than before, and Jane understand she has won a Pyrrhic victory. But there is, hopefully, the smallest possibility of change, and I hope she jumps on it. ( )

A slow building character piece about disintegrating relationships and a crime gone wrong, I found myself getting more and more drawn in, all the way to the satisfying conclusion. ( )