Emily the Strange: Stranger and Stranger: 09/04/12

In my mind, Emily the Strange is a young Abby Sciuto in that she's a mad scientist Goth with her own code of ethics that may or may not align with everyone else. In Emily the Strange: The Lost Days, Emily has to rediscover herself and her strengths and weaknesses. By the second book, Emily the Strange: Stranger and Stranger by Rob Reger, Jessica Gruner and illustrated by Buzz Parer, Emily has her memory restored so we get to see more of what she might really be like.

But there's a twist. While it might seem that the title is a play on the "'Curiouser and curiouser' said Alice" from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the title is more literal than literary. See, Emily has duplicated herself. But not it seems her twin is out to get her and her mother is no help at all, deciding to keep both daughters.

One Emily spends her time making a secret sanctuary (with help from a strange neighbor boy) in an abandoned bit of the city sewer. The other Emily meanwhile is honing her mad skateboarding skills and pulling pranks. All of their exploits are captured in diary form. There's just one problem... it's not always easy to tell which Emily is writing.

Emily the Strange: Stranger and Stranger is a book I had to re-read long parts of. This was a good thing. It was fun to track down the subtle changes in each Emily and figure out which one was writing.

While the setting is new there is a similar mixture of odd ball characters to round out this hybrid graphic novel. Emily's mother, while not a mad scientist, is just as delightfully odd as her daughter(s). There's also the boy in the sewer, and the dangerous next door neighbor who has her own agenda.

Five stars

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