A review by alex_watkins
The Eternal Smile: Three Stories by Gene Luen Yang

3.0

I liked the illustrations in this book, and thought Gene Yang was totally cool when he came to the library, but I could not love this book. I think it was a bit too clever for its own good. American Born Chinese has some surprised that are quite good and well earned, in that certain story lines are not what they appear. These 3 stories all had some twist that changed the frame of the story, but I don't think any of them earned that twist. Which I think is the all too frequent problem with short stories, they always have to be clever or ironic or have a very pat ending. I don't know how I feel about the separate artist/writer graphic novels. I know that people do that all the time in comic books. But I feel like there is something special about drawing the story that you thought up. Now Gene Yang was pretty self-deprecating when he came, and said the other guy draws way better then him. But I think there is something to his simple drawings, that have character.