TRAVEL DIARIES OF THE DEAD AND DELUSIONAL

Grief propels two teens on a
reckless road trip.

To better understand his long-gone biological
mother, Anna, 18-year-old Tupper, a white Midwestern football player and soulful
artist, retraces her epic last journey, equipped with her old car and
cryptically annotated cartoon-illustrated map. In Utah, he picks up teenage hitchhiker
Langley, recently escaped from a psychiatric ward. Haunted by her sister
Sarah—although the ghost’s independent existence and sentience remain
frustratingly ambiguous—half-Malaysian/half-white Langley travels with Tupper
and serves as the jock/artist’s Manic Pixie Dream Girl and melancholy muse.
Working through their abandonment issues, the teens find feverish romance but
little real familial resolution. Anna shares narrative duty with Tupper and
Langley, her addiction-fueled descent unfurling in reverse chronology, but her
chapters provide no character depth. Additionally, Langley often reads like an
object for Tupper’s affection rather than a complex, fully realized person. Overcrammed
with issues—sexual harassment, mental illness, addiction—and punctuated by the
illogical (occasionally illegal) grand dramatic gestures of a rom-com, the teens’
tale reads as TV-movie fodder rather than a realistic journey of self-discovery
or a sensible, sensitive coming-of-age. But Taylor’s (Hiro Loves Kite,
2018, etc.) biggest obstacle is trying to convey graphic-novel artwork and
conventions through plain prose, resulting in all tell, no show.