Solanin

I picked up Solanin by chance at a Barnes and Noble simply because I liked the cover art. However once I started to read I was amazed by not only the artistry reflected in the cover, but the story and the voice given to the characters.

Life after school is a scary place for those not yet there, the tension of "What am I going to do once I am out?" is a constant one. Solanin tells the story of a group of people graduated from college and living out in the world. Meiko works for in a office as a secretary and makes enough money to help support her boyfriend, who doesn't make a lot of money with his part time illustration job. But then she starts to ask her self "What is my dream? What do I want to do?" She quits her job and begins her unemployed life.

But just like a student at the end of summer vacation, she finds that unlimited freedom can be boring, and spends most of her time just sitting around the house. Perhaps its because she cannot figure out what she wants to do with her life, but she ends up convincing her boyfriend Naruo to get his old college band back together. The rest of the story chronicles their attempt to get the band off of the ground and how the members deal with an event that has destroyed many a real world band.

What I love about this novel is easily the art, the characters are created simply but beautifully. Meiko is pretty but not gorgeous, while Naruo falls into more of an artist/rocker look. Some of the single frame pages feature some amazingly poignant images, a scene of the band warming up, or just a girlfriend picking up her boyfriends guitar. All of these images pack an amazing amount of emotion and character into one frame.

It also deals with some interesting aspects of the music industry. Does making it big by sacrificing your artistic voice to the popular idol of the week, make you a sell out? What do you do once your career is over?

What do we do with our lives? Are they just spent in searching for a dream to fulfill? Solanin attempts to answer this question. More accurately it does an amazing job of showing people who are trying to figure out that answer on their own.