REVIEW: ‘Token’ Written by Alisa Kwitney and Illustrated by Joëlle Jones

Token (2008) is writ­ten Alisa Kwiteny and illus­trated by Joëlle Jones and pub­lished by MINX.

Alisa Kwit­ney, the author of my favorite con­tem­po­rary romances - The Dom­i­nant Blonde and Flirt­ing in Cars has penned a graphic novel for young adults. The author(s) did good job of enter­tain­ing me. Alisa Kwit­ney is a former editor of Ver­tigo and with those cre­den­tials, I expected no less from her.

MINX is a imprint of DC comics that is tar­geted to a spe­cific demo­graphic: a young female audi­ence. The sto­ries tend to follow the same format of having a strong female lead, a story full of high adven­ture and romance fol­lowed by a moment or two of self-​discovery. This story is no dif­fer­ent save that it’s one of the better titles the imprint has to offer this year.

In ‘Token’, the author has set her story during the late 1980’s. The nar­ra­tive fol­lows fif­teen year old Shira Spek­tor, a young Jewish girl living in a hotel with her dad in Miami Beach, Florida. Her father, Alan Spek­tor Esquire, is a real estate lawyer and her mother: dead from a car acci­dent when she was four. The only women in Shira’s life is her elderly grand­mother and her best friend Min­erva, a seventy-​year old former Hol­ly­wood actress.

When read­ers are intro­duced to Shira, we learn that she is not a pop­u­lar kid at her high school. In fact, a few of her class­mates have labeled her as weird. But there really isn’t any­thing weird about Shira. She is out­go­ing, makes good grades and enjoys the occas­sional romance novel.

We also learn that Shira and her father have a very close rela­tion­ship. He takes her to Woolworth’s to cel­e­brate on spe­cial occa­sions. So she’s used to having her father’s atten­tion and affec­tion. How­ever, when her father’s roman­tic rela­tion­ship with his sec­re­tary gets serious,his doting, loving daugh­ter turns into a rebel­lious teenager. As a way to get back at her father Shira starts to shoplift.

Mean­while, love and adven­ture comes call­ing in the form of Rafael Wilson, a boy from Spain. Rafael is a street kid bad boy who takes Shira under his wing and aides her during her shoplift­ing sprees. The two are together a lot in here and Shira is caught up in the romance of it all. Every­thing seems groovy, that is until all of it spi­rals out of control.

The story cul­mi­nates with Shira cel­e­brat­ing her “sweet six­teen” and that turns out to be less than stel­lar. Her first brief romance ends abruptly and her best friend suf­fers a stroke. The ending has a some­what whim­si­cal feel to it as Shira sum­ma­rizes about life being about ‘begin­nings and end­ings’. From the way Shira started the story as a spoiled, mate­ri­al­is­tic kid with her head in the clouds, I felt she grew up just a little bit; she didn’t get a Cin­derella ending but a big bow was still neatly tied at the end.

My impres­sions of ‘Token’ was that it was a neat story and the art­work was well done. Over­all: an enter­tain­ing tale for teens to pass the time away. I’d rate this a B. Again, it’s one of the better titles offered by MINX this year. This graphic novel is due out Nov 4, 2008 or sooner at your local book­store or comic bookstore.

Tagged as: Alisa Kwitney, Graphic Novels, MINX 2008, MINX graphic novels, MINX imprint, rebellious teen, shoplifting