Burnout is a short graphic novel published by Minx, who looks like it publishes a line of graphic novels that are targeted to young readers. Written by Rebecca Donner and illustrated by Inaki Miranda, I especially like the art style in this book. It has simple lines, but neat, and shows expressions of the characters nicely.

The story line is pretty simple as well. Danni’s father left her and her mother. They traveled to a small town in Oregon and met Hank and Haskell, a father and son. Danni has to share room with her new stepbrother Haskell, and later on finds out what’s Haskell been sneaking out to late at night. Hint: it’s something to do with being hardcore environmentalist. Or eco-terrorism as what they call it.

The characters are pretty colorful to make things interesting. But the whole mood of the book is pretty bleak. The end doesn’t help either. All in all, it’s another interesting insight into graphic novels that tell tales from daily lives, something with no fantastical element whatsoever. It’s a quick read, so might worth your little time.

Update from Inaki Miranda’s blog: Apparently DC’s Minx line was cancelled. More here. I read somewhere that the Minx line probably doesn’t reach the target audience that it should. I stumbled upon this book at the library and just picked it up out of interest. I haven’t read the other books in this line, so I can’t give much comment.

Pages: 148
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Publication year: 2008

First line
Sometimes when I’m alone…

Last line
…three one-thousand…

Also reviewed by

avidbookreader.com (a much nicer and longer summary of the story here) | Biblio File (right at the bottom)