A Gift for a Ghost

by Borja Gonzalez

Overview

An untalented punk band and a parallel dimension—what could go wrong?

In Borja González’s stunning graphic novel, two parallel stories reflect and intertwine in a tale of youthful dreams and desires. In 1856, Teresa, a young aristocrat, is more interested in writing avantgarde horror poetry than making a suitable marriage. In 2016, three teenage girls, Gloria, Laura, and Cristina, want to start a punk band called the Black Holes. They have everything they need: attitude, looks, instinct . . . and an alarming lack of musical talent. They’ve barely started rehearsing when strange things begin to happen. As their world and Teresa’s intersect, they’re haunted by the echo of something that happened 160 years ago.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781419740138
Publisher:	ABRAMS
Publication date:	05/05/2020
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	295,442
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

Borja González is a self-taught illustrator and comic strip artist. His first published title was La Reina Orquídea, a precious and haunting short piece that placed the author at the center of national attention in Spain. A Gift for a Ghost is his first long-form work. He lives in Badajoz, Spain.

Editorial Reviews

01/06/2020

The lives of two teenage girls living 160 years apart intertwine in this magical coming-of-age story. In 1856, Theresa, an insouciant young woman with a taste for gothic poetry, is on the cusp of her debut into society and facing the expectations that come with it. In 2016, Laura, wearing a new costume each time she appears (sometimes as a fairy princess, sometimes a skeleton), writes inscrutable lyrics for her all-girl punk band. The mystery at the heart of this evocative graphic novel is exactly what connects these two girls, and the book cannily uses the artwork to provide clues. Teresa’s story appears in muted autumnal colors, while Laura’s is in black-and-white, except where pops of color escape from Teresa’s narrative—butterflies, ice cream, a cat, a costume. Each page is elegantly composed, with flat blacks that invoke a Mike Mignola–esque chiaroscuro. Though the figures are faceless, each character has a distinctive personality and body language that mark them as individuals. The idiosyncrasies of teenage girls’ friendships and sibling relationships are quietly conveyed and thoroughly believable. Combining understated visual storytelling and dialogue with gentle fantasy, this mystical story is wonderfully grounded in real emotion and experiences. (May)

Publishers Weekly

A Gift for a Ghost is an uncommon fantasy that speaks to the perennial, difficult-to-verbalize issues that teenagers face.

BookPage

A Gift For A Ghost is the exact opposite of the way so many stories are told today… It’s about collaboration between the reader and the work and creating a personal experience from it, something that all the best creative works aspire to.

The Comics Beat

This thoughtful, graceful look into young women trying to find their place in the world may appeal to other adolescent, frustrated artists.

Booklist

02/01/2020

In 1856, a young woman named Teresa frustrates her family by spending more time writing strange poems about vampires, ghouls, and flaming velocipedes than preparing for her society debut. In 2016, a group of high school girls starts a band called the Black Holes, even though none of them can play an instrument, and they spend more time wandering around a nearby lake at night than practicing. One of them, Laura, writes lyrics that sound like "the Brontë Sisters giving a talk about a study on the thermonuclear fusion of stars." Spanish cartoonist González establishes a complex web of plot and thematic connections bridging the 160 years that separate these story lines using a variety of techniques—an orange cat drifts from a scene in one era into a key moment set in another, dialog overlaps, a shoreline shares the same contours as a butterfly wing. Eventually, a desperate act committed in one era directly impacts characters in the other, setting one character free and shattering another. VERDICT Elegantly crafted, with delicate cartooning and a brilliant autumnal color palette, González's first full-length work delivers a quietly emotional evocation of the universal hopes and desires linking characters across centuries.

Library Journal