This was such a strange read for me. I had to read it twice to understand what was going on. Everything from the characters to the illustration is so different, but at the same time, it all felt very realistic. The coloring of the panels in the beginning against the similar color of the illustration was harsh on my eyes, but I could see the simplicity of the brush strokes Santiago uses in the illustrations. The other thing that struck me about the art style was the way some things like signs, logos, or magazines that are widely recognized are much clearer than the surrounding illustration as if they were shrunk into the frame instead of drawn.

The character Omar seems so miserable throughout the book. He hates his job and doesn’t see it helping him get anywhere. He’s terrified to commit to a career path that will get him away from his job like culinary school or art classes. I think that commitment problem also extends to his relationship with his girlfriend Lucinda. Even though they’ve been together for two years, he continues to flirt with other women and downplay his relationship. His drug and alcohol consumption seems to be the only thing that makes him happy. It seems like he only uses to help ease his depression for short periods of time. I found myself waiting for Omar to come to some tragic end since he seemed to going in this downward spiral for most of the book, but I was happy that didn’t turn out to be the case. Omar’s inner monologue added to the realistic feel of the novel as a whole. His musings have a philosophical tinge to them, very contemplative about the world and people and why things happen the way that they do and what it all means. He tries to make sense of the world as if he thinks it’ll help him make sense of his own life and figure out who he is. It makes me wonder what happened in his life that we don’t see in the novel that got him to this point. I know people like Omar who have reached that crisis in their lives where they are unsure about what direction they want their life to go in and end up at a standstill trying to make sense of it all and failing. I think that realization helped me in my attempt to understand the story better on the second read.

The last thing that grabbed me while reading were the random letters and blurred images thrown together on some of the pages. I thought back to when we read Jimmy Corrigan and thought maybe these were supposed to be glimpses into Omar’s skewed idea of reality like how we saw Jimmy’s dreams. I was most curious about the references and images to Christianity splashed in the novel. I wondered if he had a religious upbringing and strayed from his faith and now that he’s lost, the references are his mind’s attempt to get back there in the hopes that it’ll help him.