Clumsy by Jeffrey Brown
I found out about Clumsy from a few guys I follow on tumblr who were flooding my dashboard with pages from the novel around two to three weeks ago. I finally finished reading it just now and though it wasn’t anything life-changing or amazingly spectacular, it was a pleasant read from start to finish.
Clumsy is a story of two people in a long distance relationship and the book shows highlights of their relationship – from their first meeting to their breakup over the phone and through e-mail.
Anyone who has ever been in a romantic relationship that eventually fell apart (as relationships often do) will identify with Clumsy. Brown tells the story of his long distance relationship with Theresa through a series of black and white, roughly-drawn sketches of their moments together. Every page captures days that may seem trivial at that moment but are the kind that you look back on in retrospect.
I really don’t have anything negative to say about this book other than how some texts were quite hard to read. I understand that Brown’s sketches were clumsy (no pun intended) but he could’ve at least spared the readers from getting headaches caused by reading sketchy and almost-incomprehensible fonts.
Below are some of my favorite pages from the book. They’re cute, funny and bittersweet. Enjoy!
