"[Ancco's] stories liberate us to be what we are: friends, artists, monsters, mothers, human beings."-- The Globe and Mail

At nineteen, the idea that you have your whole life ahead of you with endless possibilities can leave you terrifyingly stiff. Throwing mobility to the wind, you dull yourself with booze. The grown-ups around you are stunted by their own failures so they act out--with alcohol, too, sometimes with violence. What was once the hope of youth quickly spirals into powerlessness and malaise as the days trickle by. Ancco expertly renders the moment of suspension between the desire to grow up and the fear that accompanies it.

Autobiography blends with fiction in these coming-of-age stories about people reckoning with their place in their community and women coming to terms with other women. A boy living with HIV tries to decide how he's going to tell his parents--or whether he should tell them at all. A mother puts pressure on her daughter to pass her exams, and the stress drives them both to drink, fueling a toxic relationship with a lot of care just below the ugly surface. Another girl keeps getting bruises, but who's inflicting the damage--herself or a loved one? And dogs--seemingly the only ones capable of unconditional love--offer some reprieve.

In Nineteen, Ancco delivers a cutting panorama of contemporary Korean society that's much darker than one might expect, while also brimming with life and the vitality of youth.

Author: Ancco
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Published: 09/22/2020
Pages: 176
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.20h x 6.00w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9781770464100
Audience: Young Adult


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 07/20/2020
Booklist 10/15/2020 pg. 38

About the Author
Ancco began publishing diary comics in 2002 to quick acclaim, capturing an audience with the immediacy and honesty of her cartooning. Rooted in her lived experience, Ancco's fiction shares these strengths, bringing an authentic and genuine voice to a generation of Korean youth. Bad Friends won the Korean Comics Today prize and the Prix Révélation at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2016, before being translated into English in 2018. Ancco was born in 1983 just outside of Seoul, Korea.