The Three Rooms in Valerie's Head

March 15, 2018
Valerie keeps dead boyfriends in her basement. Not literally?but it's an apt metaphor for the memories she'd rather not dredge up. Sometimes, though, it's helpful to have them around, since they give her advice, mostly about love. This surreal, dark comedy comes with a bizarre premise that it bears out in charming ways as Valerie reminisces about each of the relationships. The exes are a rogue's gallery of hilariously terrible boyfriends?weird sexual compulsions, overbearingly pedantic ( Let's unpack this thing . . . We are enjoying a romantic meal. But what is romance? What is A MEAL? ), selfish, and so on?though Valerie's got her own faults, too. Berry's delicately cartoonish artwork, made up of fine-lined, goggle-eyed figures and backgrounds filled in with aqueous watercolor, softens the dark parts of the story, especially the ex-boyfriends' ashen corpses. Ultimately, these enthrallingly weird episodes piece together a story about Valerie's reluctance to find a new relationship after facing some profound grief, and that grounding core gives this off-kilter graphic novel welcome emotional depth.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

April 1, 2018

In surreal visual metaphors that make narrative if not literal sense, Valerie creates scenarios about failed relationships and imagines conversations with ex-boyfriends in this ingenious debut from British fiction writer Gaffney (Sawn-Off Tales). For example, Valerie keeps her past flames in the basement, dragging them as zombies upstairs to her front room for socializing. Between times, she plays the melodeon and dates new men with odd social quirks. But then she meets Stanley, and they fall in love. Gaffney's characters explore cockeyed yet beguiling ideas. Valerie imagines her melodeon's squeals come from unhappy elves living inside the instrument and conjectures that the "frisson of recent sexual activity" might help sell a house. One of the boyfriends identifies the origin of a tarmac floor by licking it. Berry's (24 by 7) simple watercolor art suggests that of Lucy Knisley but is rounder and more humorous and uses a colorful crayon style for flashbacks. VERDICT Blurring the boundaries between physical and mental realities, Valerie's poignant romances open larger vistas where music and imagination offer wit and insight beyond the grayness of daily life. This will appeal to romance fans seeking more challenging fare.--MC

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