Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
“I can change how I look. In my head at least.”
The graphic novel “In Limbo” by Korean American artist Deb J.J. Lee starts with a scene of seagulls flying, the next page focussing on a beautiful girl that’s not the protagonist. Because Deborah AKA Jung-Jin, wishes she was someone else, someone with double eyelids and a killer jawline.
I was lured into picking “In Limbo” by the stunning cover art for the graphic novel, and was expecting colorful art inside too, however, the graphic novel is nostalgically drawn in retro hues of black, white, and greys. While the character art is on the simpler side, Deb J.J. Lee puts in a lot of effort in the backgrounds, and sometimes, they almost feel like real pictures.
As far as the storytelling in In Limbo is concerned, it mostly follows Deborah’s struggles with making friends at school, her turbulent relationship with her mother, and a new friendship gone sour. Deborah doesn’t have any friends in class, and the only teens she is pals with are from her orchestra class. In an ironic twist, even though Deborah has fun only during orchestra practice at school, she isn’t interested in playing the violin anymore and starts to fall behind. Increasing pressure from her mother to do better doesn’t help either.
Deborah soon becomes heavily reliant on her new friend Quinn for validation, who, unlike the asocial Deborah, is quite extroverted and outgoing. Their friendship is an accurate representation of how it’s important for people to draw boundaries when their own mental health is at risk. There’s some gap in the storytelling between what really transpires between Deborah and Quinn; however, their falling out is a near-perfect example of how friendships can break.
Even though In Limbo is almost 350 pages long, filled with instances of the casual racism Deborah faces at school, along with her efforts to ‘fit in,’ the graphic novel often feels like a rambling account of a teen’s memories. This, of course, should charm some readers, but I would’ve preferred a more coherent structure to the novel. The graphic novel ends with Deborah’s trip to South Korea, which felt quite random. From Deborah grappling with mental health issues and her fraught relationships, the book suddenly switches to her taking a trip and meeting her maternal grandmother, who is the spitting image of her mother.
In Limbo thus ends with Deborah recalling a happy childhood memory with her mom, and Deb J.J. Lee closes the novel with a picture of seagulls, which circles back to the way the story started. But some readers might not even remember that. The hurried climax left me a little dazed and dissatisfied, but the artwork makes it worth it.
Rating: 3 on 5.
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