Book Review: Paper Girls vol #1

Book: Paper Girls volume #1 (issues #1-5) by Brian K. Vaughan with illustrations by Cliff Chiang, color by Matt Wilson and letters by Jared K. Fletcher

Cover Art by Cliff Chiang

Edition: Trade Paperback

Description:

In the early hours after Halloween of 1988, four 12-year-old newspaper delivery girls uncover the most important story of all time.



Rating: 5 stars

Review:

Paper Girls volume #1 is a fascinating sci-fi story that's set in the 1980's and follows newspaper delivery girls Erin, MacKenzie, Tiffany and KJ who experienced anything but a normal delivery route as they encountered one strange anomaly after another from finding a space craft to people disappearing to running into time travelers.

The morning after Halloween, Erin was on her delivery route when she was harassed by three costumed teenage boys for a newspaper. However, before things could become worse, she was saved by three other newspaper girls MacKenzie "Mac", Tiffany and KJ.

To make it easier and safer to finish their routes the girls split up into two groups: Erin and Mac and Tiffany and KJ. To stay in touch, Mac borrowed one of Tiffany's walkie-talkie radios. Despite splitting up, it didn't seem to lessen their troubles because Mac was harassed by a police officer who thought she might be responsible for smashed windows in the area while Tiffany and KJ were accosted by three guys and they stole Tiffany's walkie-talkie radio. According to KJ the guys were wearing bad Halloween costumes and speaking a strange language.

The girls were mad and decided to go after the guys to get Tiffany's radio back. The trail led them to the basement of a house that was under construction and they found what looked like a space ship. Tinkering with the ship caused a strange reaction and had the girls quickly leaving the house where they spotted the guys who took Tiffany's radio. A quick scuffle with the guys led to the girls discovering two things: the startling appearance of one of the guys and after the fight Erin finding a small device with the image of an apple on it.

Something strange was going on and it was getting stranger as the day went by. As the girls were on their way to Mac's house for an ill advised reason, they spotted the most unbelievable thing, a large group of pterodactyls (or something that looks like it) flying in the sky.

Going to Mac's house only seemed to make things worse because it left Erin hurt and in dire need of medical help. But with the phones not working there was no way to call for help leaving the girls to have to get Erin to the hospital. But there is another problem developing because with people disappearing will there be anyone at the hospital to help Erin once they get there.

On their way to the hospital the girls ran into yet another problem, there was a man wearing a strange space suit speaking in a strange Elizabethan or Shakespearean speech pattern standing in the middle of the street. And another strange thing was that he was in possession of Tiffany's missing radio but he was offering to help them and to get Erin medical help.

However, something unexpected happened resulting in the girls reluctantly going along with two of the three guys they had got into a fight with earlier. There was a little bit of information being revealed about the guys including that they were from the future (as well as the "Shakespearean" guy) but the best thing is the guys had a way to help save Erin. Although the girls were unaware their situation was becoming even worse because the "Shakespearean" guy is part of something bigger, the "Elders" and it looks like the leader had a plan to possible capture the girls.

This is a dark yet at times humorous story that's a start to what I believe is going to be an even bigger story that involves Erin especially after the cliffhanger. The more I read of this first volume the more I wanted to know about what was happening in the future and what the "Elders" were really up to. I thought the characters were really interesting and out of the four girls I think Mac could really benefit from an attitude adjustment. She has this chip on her shoulder along with a wall up which makes it easier for her not to show any emotion but when things started to happen that wall started to crack revealing her real emotion during certain situations. She also seemed to have a problem with being homophobic and I like that every time she made a vile or disparaging comment, her friends said something to her about it.

I thought this first volume was really good, it has awesome artwork coupled with a well-written riveting plot that's steadily revealed as the story unfolds. My only problem with this volume is that it ends with a cliffhanger, albeit an incredible one but nonetheless still a cliffhanger. Now I can't wait to read the second volume which I have to get immediately.