The Last Book I Loved: Alina Simone, Unlovable

Unlovable (Fantagraphics Books) is a graphic novel by Esther Pearl Watson that is based on a diary the author found in a gas station bathroom in the 1980’s belonging to one “Tammy Pierce.” True to the title, Tammy really is unlovable — a terrible student, a social climber, devoid of empathy, clinging to hollow friendships and the first to heap abuse on any other wretched asswipe that comes her way. Yet through a series of vibrant and lurid drawings, her foul-mouthed story still carries you along. Some of us are turned off by the smell of aqua-net; others, loopy with 80’s nostalgia, only breath in more deeply at the first whiff. Well worth getting for the diagram on how to change in gym class ‘without showing anything’ alone.