Yzabel / July 26, 2015

Pawn Shop by Joey Esposito

My rating: [rating=4]

Blurb:

Pawn Shop is an original graphic novel about the intertwining lives of four strangers in the ecosystem of New York City, connected by the streets they walk on and the people they touch. Following a lonely widower, a struggling Long Island Railroad employee, a timid hospice nurse, and a drug-addled punk, Pawn Shop explores the big things that separate us and the little moments that inexplicably unite us.

Written by Joey Esposito (Footprints) and drawn by Sean Von Gorman (Toe Tag Riot), Pawn Shop is a slice-of-life tale that weaves together separate lives to celebrate the ever-changing nature of New York City and the people that make it the greatest city in the world.

Review:

[I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

Four people in New York, whose lives intersect, briefly connect, are more or less related to each other, through a common denominator: a simple pawn shop, in which old memories come to life, long-lost items surface again, from one hand to the other, for various reasons. Some honest, some not. Some out of need, some just by chance.

Harold, Arthur, Jen and Samantha all live different lives, coming from different backgrounds, but all marred with regrets. Regrets about not proposing sooner to a wife who died too soon after the wedding. About not daring confessing to the person who matters most. About letting someone else control your life because of just one bit of leverage. About trying to do what’s best for your family, to the point of neglecting your own life—yet you cannot let go, and if you do, guilt is only waiting at the corner.

I didn’t enjoy the art, I admit, but the stories were interesting, as well as the way they connected: through just enough little coincidences, but not enough to look as if they were too many or too unbelievable. For instance, it wasn’t illogical for Samantha to meet or at least see those people who always travelled the same subway line at the same time every day. For Arthur to see her, since he worked as a nurse to help her ailing brother. Or even for Jen to bump into Harold upon exiting the pawn shop.

I may have liked to see a little more about their lives, especially Jen’s, as her boyfriend implied that one word from him could destroy her life (in the end, we won’t know if he did or not). Or maybe there’ll be a second volume to tell us more about these characters? I don’t know. It both feels pretty complete as is it, with this “want” more a whim on my part than out of any fault of the book.

Fairly interesting, in any case, and very touching when it came to human feelings and how even little things can cause a lot of changes to happen. Changes that are life-altering, though not necessarily in a grand way: subtlety can have just as much weight, after all.

3.5 stars.