Set during Daisy, Susan, and Esther's first year, the story finds their friendship still on uneasy footing. Susan is struggling to share, Esther is wondering how college has so quickly become same old, same old, and Daisy wonders if she's latched too tightly onto these two girls.
Each of them ends up lost in one obsession or the other that leaves them blind to each other's problems. Susan can't stop being angry about McGraw's presence. (Based on that and Daisy having her baby pigeon, I think this must be set not long after the first six issues of what became the ongoing series.) Esther repeatedly debases herself, even being willing to attend her classes, trying to become friends with some massively cynical goth girl. And Daisy signs up for three dozen different clubs and becomes ensnared by a yoga cult.
I wasn't sure about this going in. Would another writer be able to capture the voice of characters that I'd only seen written by John Allison. Especially when I'm used to seeing the characters say the dialogue and emote. Pratt mostly pulls it off. The voices of the characters seem right, even in their internal monologues. Their reasoning behind their decisions feels on point, too. Daisy's difficulty in saying no, Esther's tendency to make bad decisions about friends based on superficial characteristics, Susan inadvertently causing harm with her caustic attitude. There's a fair amount of humor, and the absurd elements the stories typically have.
The characters are chattier than in the comics, but there's no pictures to carry any of the story, so that makes sense. If I thought it about, it wasn't hard to picture what I was reading in my head in comic panels. It was in Max Sarin's art style, for the record.
'Daisy had been ejected from the club, and an e-mail with Esther's photo attached had been sent out to every stationary story in Sheffield warning employees not to let her in.'
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