When Adam Freedman — a skinny, awkward, inexperienced teenager from Piedmont, California — goes to stay with his older sister Casey in New York City, he is hopeful that his life is about to change. And it sure does. It is the summer of 2006. Gay marriage and transgender rights are in the air, and Casey has thrust herself into a wild lesbian subculture. Soon Adam is tagging along to underground clubs, where there are hot older women everywhere he turns. It takes some time for him to realize that many in this new crowd assume he is trans—a boy who was born a girl. Why else would this baby-faced guy always be around? Then Adam meets Gillian, the girl of his dreams — but she couldn’t possibly be interested in him. Unless passing as a trans guy might actually work in his favor . . . Ariel Schrag’s scathingly funny and poignant debut novel puts a fresh spin on questions of love, attraction, self-definition, and what it takes to be at home in your own skin.

Adam

Literature & Fiction

Schrag, Ariel

United States

Harper-perennial

Potential

Comics & Graphic Novels

Comic Strips

SLG Publishing

by Ariel Schrag 10th grade: anxiety in excess and frustration to the fullest. Definition is the tale of one girl's plow through this tumultuous year. Ariel Schrag has been critically acclaimed for her work in Definition. Jennifer Joseph of The Bay Guardian said, "Schrag's perceptiveness and incredible eye for detail make Definition brilliant. Rarely have I seen such substantial work come from a person of her age." Maggie Overfelt from The Minnesota Daily said, "it's impossible to put down."

Definition

Graphic Novels

Ariel Schrag, a critically-acclaimed memoirist and screenwriter, takes us on a painfully funny tour of her formative years, from her childhood in Berkeley to her mid-twenties in Brooklyn, exploring what it means to connect to others when you don’t yet know who you are—when you want to be “part of it” but the “it” changes daily. We meet hippie babysitters, mean girls, best friends, former friends, prom dates, girlfriends, sex ed students, and far too many LensCrafters sales associates. These frank, irreverent, and honest comics revel in the uncomfortable—occasionally cringe-inducing—moments from our early years that end up wiring us as people. Part of It further cements Ariel Schrag as “one of the best pure storytellers...in any medium” (Comics Journal).

Part Of It: Comics and Confessions

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Harper Paperbacks

Ariel Schrag captures the American high school experience in all its awkward, questioning glory in Awkward and Definition, the first of three amazingly honest autobiographical graphic novels about her teenage years. During the summer following each year at Berkeley High School in California, Ariel wrote a comic book about her experiences, which she would then photocopy and sell around school. Some friends thrilled to see themselves in the comic, others not so much, but everyone was interested. Awkward chronicles Ariel's freshman year, and Definition, her sophomore year. With anxiety in excess and frustration to the fullest, Ariel dives in -- meeting new people, going to concerts, crushing out, loving chemistry, drawing comics, and obsessing over everything from glitter-laden girls to ionic charges and the constant pursuit of the number-one score. Totally true and achingly honest, with every cringe-inducing encounter and exhilarating first moment documented -- Awkward and Definition is an unflinching look at what it's like being a teenage girl in America.

Awkward and Definition: The High School Comic Chronicles of Ariel Schrag (High School Chronicles of Ariel Schrag)

Touchstone

Ariel Schrag continues her tumultuous passage through high school in the second book of her acclaimed series of frank, insightful, and painfully honest autobiographical graphic novels. Written during the summer following her junior year at Berkeley High School in California, Potential recounts Ariel's first real relationship and first-time love with a girl, her quest to lose her virginity to a boy, and her parents' divorce - as well as the personal and social complications of writing about her life as she lives it. Along the way she hangs out with her favorite teacher, obsesses over clothes, gets drunk, smokes pot, and tries to connect the biology she reads about in textbooks with the biology she's living.

Potential: The High School Comic Chronicles of Ariel Schrag (High School Chronicles of Ariel Schrag)

Regional U.S.

Ariel Schrag concludes her turbulent ride through high school in the long-awaited final volume of her acclaimed series of compelling and strikingly honest autobiographical graphic novels. Set in Berkeley, California, Likewise takes us into the holy grail of teenagers, every bit as terrifying as it is liberating: senior year. Struggling with a major longing for her ex-girlfriend who has gone away to college, her parents' post-divorce relationship, anxiety over the future, and all the graphic details of her complicated life, Ariel sets out to document everything and everyone. And when she discovers James Joyce, a whole new world of creativity opens up to her. Written with unabashed honesty, insight, and humor, Likewise is a brave account of one teenage girl's search for truth.

Likewise: The High School Comic Chronicles of Ariel Schrag (High School Chronicles of Ariel Schrag)

Arts & Photography

GALLERY BOOKS

The highly anticipated True Porn, an anthology of real life sex stories told by real live cartoonists features the auto-biographical sex stories of Ivan Brunetti, Laurenn McCubbin, Jeffrey Brown, Ariel Schrag and 40 more of today's talents. True Porn is frank, honest and always entertaining. From the excitement of the first time to the despair of the last time, True Porn portrays the highs and lows of our most basic urge. Cover art by James Kochalka (Fancy Froglin's Sexy Forest) and James Sturm (Golem's Mighty Swing).

True Porn

Brown, Jeffrey

Brunetti, Ivan

McCubbin, Laurenn

VARIOUS

Alternative Comics

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Books by Schrag, Ariel