Loved the art style was super cute and a bit of a 90s nostalgia read. I loved the format of written notes as the main text!

Raised By Ghosts is a beautiful, nostalgic graphic novel inspired by the author's life growing up in the 90s. The book follows Briana as she graduates from middle school and moves on to high school Her parents are divorced and she feels like she has to raise herself. She struggles in school and doesn't really see the point in doing the work. In middle school, Briana didn't have any friends, but in high school she finds some kindred spirits to pass notes with, make mix tapes for, and go to shows and parties together. Despite their similarities, Briana still doesn't really feel like she fits in and that loneliness of adolescence permeates the entire book.

This book is really nostalgic of the 90s, especially 90s music, so it will definitely appeal to people who grew up around that time. I think this book will also appeal to anyone of any age who has had trouble fitting in. I really enjoyed the illustrations and I feel like the color palette helped to heighten the emotions the book was trying to elicit. There isn't a whole lot of dialogue and most of the book was told through diary entries or the notes that Briana had passed, which was a really unique way to get inside the character's head. This graphic novel sort of reminded me of Freaks and Geeks or My So-Called Life, so I think it will appeal to people who enjoy stories about outcasts and coming of age stories.

Thank you Fantagraphics Books and NetGalley for the advanced electronic review copy of this book. This beautifully illustrated hauntingly melancholic book is about loneliness and self acceptance of a 1990s-2000 teen. It’s a semi-autobiographical story with great descriptions of a teen’s everyday life. I am glad to have read this book; however, my students would find it too sad.

This one hit different, I think it might for 90s/2000s kids. A time before rampant social media use. A time of passing notes. I feel like this book is relatable to some of how I grew up. Parents that were largely absent in adolescence, being somewhere between lower/middle class. Being in a small town and hanging out with friends... this book was sad but nostalgic. I don't know how else to describe it.

I don't order teen graphic novels for my library, just the ones for kids, but I would definitely put forward the idea of purchasing this for our collection to the person who does. I think it's really beautiful to look at and captures what it is like to be the kind of kid many of us were in the 80s and 90s - navigating things on our own with parents who were mostly absent. Briana is a pretty realistic character - clearly intelligent but a bit checked out at school, she spends her time with or writing notes to her friends and fellow misfits. I thought the structure of this book, pairing image panels with text that resembles handwritten notes, was effective.

This is a very sweet and lovely graphic novel.

Briana Loewinsohn’s “Raised By Ghosts” is a partial autobiography about growing up. We follow a young Briana who flits between her divorced parents’ houses and struggles with connecting with people her age. We follow her from middle to high school. We see her struggle with grades. Struggle with maintaining friendships. Struggle with having absent divorced parents.

It was honestly kind of relatable for me. As a kid of divorced parents who also struggled at home for similar reasons that are detailed in this book, I really felt for Briana. When she struggles with what to do when she thinks a friend is mad at her..also relatable. It was very poignant and when Briana finds solace in art and in writing, it was just such a beautiful moment of growth.

Overall, I think this is a lovely book. I at times felt too old for some of it but I think it’s a lovely way to pass 20 minutes.

Visually this book is absolutely stunning! The drawing style is calm and melancholic and I love how the slow passing of time was visualized through the use of multiple similar drawn panels or by splitting one image into multiple panels, which really added to the sad underlying mood. I also love the title, which was the first thing that caught my eye and I find it really fitting and poetic. The structure of this book was interesting and quite unique, as most of the story is told through little notes, letters and diary entries, but because of this I struggled a bit with finding a connection with the secondary characters and sometimes I couldn't remember if they were introduced before or not.

Raised by Ghosts is an interesting take on an autobiography. It is a graphic novel told using a mix of comic panels and notes. I found it really interesting how the notes changed throughout the book, and were sometimes on different scraps of paper. I liked how her parents were never truly shown on page; just a hand, shadow, or a speech bubble at most. It really showed how alone Briana felt at times. I liked the art style for the book as well.

In this semi-autobiographical work, Briana Loewinsohn gives us a wonderful, moving account of growing up in the 1990's. Told in a mix of comic panels, and journal entries. The art is evocative, using muted colours to help portray the sadness and isolation that Briana feels.

In a time before the internet and mobile phones kept everyone connected, keeping us up to date with news and gossip at the touch of a button, Briana navigates her teenage years. She uses her art and her journalling to try and make sense of the world, and her place in it, and to combat the isolation she feels.

I haven't read Loewinsohn's other work, but Raised By Ghosts made me feel like I should immediately locate it. A haunting is loneliness, and this memoir made that all too clear. The writing itself is candid and overly aware of itself and its use. I felt the writing confined the narrator to the page a little too much, but it aided readers in understanding this loneliness as well as "ghosts" taking up space and removing the narrator's agency. This section of shared life felt very intimate and was moving to read. Thanks for the opportunity to read this important work as an e-ARC, NetGalley and Fantagraphics!

I really liked the art style and the melancholy vibes, but this one didn't really hit home with me. I feel like it needed more substance for it to really hit home.

Briana is raising herself throughout middle school and high school. Her parents are absent physically and emotionally. It’s the story of loneliness and being alone. Feeling alone even at school, in the middle of a crowd, even when in a room full of people that you think are your friends. These emotions, the way of drifting through a day, feeling completely alone and disconnected, are ones I distinctly remember from my own youth, and still sometimes feel. The beautiful art reflects the longing and insecurity of growing up.
Thank you to NetGalley and Fantagraphics Books for this DRC.
#RaisedbyGhosts #NetGalley

I feel like this will be selected as a part of the JLG, it's a brilliant combination of coming of age story in graphic novel format.

DNF'd at about a third of the way through, unfortunately, the art style did not capture my attention and I couldn't make myself continue reading.

I loved Loewinsohn's first title, Ephemera. However, I felt Raised by Ghosts lacked the same focus and insight into Loewinsohn's adolescence. It came across very superficial and rushed and ultimately, I did not feel as connected with Loewinsohn as I did with Ephemera. I do feel the message is applicable to the intended audience, so I would still recommend this title, but it is not one I would revisit.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an eARC for me to review!

I did not fully read the summary and was expecting actual ghosts, so boo to me for that. :'(

The art is sketchy and lovely, very well rendered. I like how most of the dialogue is in notes between Briana and her friends, or diary entries. The relationship with her parents could have been fleshed out further.

Overall, a very nicely designed book. Just not enough ghosts!!!