Child Star

by Brian "Box" Brown, Box Brown

Child Star is a fictional documentary-style graphic novel about how growing up in the spotlight robs young actors of a true childhood.

Child star Owen Eugene had it all: a hit sitcom on prime time, a Saturday morning cartoon, and a memoir on the bestseller list. The secret to his success was his talent for improvisation . . . and his small size. On screen he made the whole world laugh, but behind the scenes his life was falling apart. Hollywood ate him alive.

Inspired by real-life child stars, bestselling author Brian "Box" Brown created Owen Eugene, a composite character whose tragic life is an amalgam of 1980s pop culture.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Fiction, Adult, Realistic Fiction, Historical Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics

240 pages, Paperback

First published June 30, 2020

Reviews

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Looking into the biographies of my childhood TV favorites, I found that many of their life stories have a particular tragedy to them. The world uses them up and then tosses them out.”
- Author Brian “Box” Brown in the Author’s Note for Child Star



Child Star is a conglomeration of pop culture realities into one fictional tale. If you were a fan of sitcoms in the 80s and 90s, I think you will find a lot of nostalgia and several plot points that will sound familiar from actual stories of child stars from that era. I don’t think it is any secret that in general Hollywood chews up and spits out child stars, and this is that story in words and pictures.



I enjoyed both the story and the art. I have noticed the art format of limited colors (shades of blue, grey, in this case orange-ish with black and grey) in a lot of the recently released titles I have read. Seems to be common for non-fiction or fiction based on non-fiction titles. I do enjoy this artistic choice and I think it appropriate that stories of former child stars has a “Sunday Comics” feel as well.



Child Star is a fun little get away with some seriousness and drama included. Your thirst for nostalgia will be quenched but, if you have been paying any attention to pop culture for the past 30 year, I don’t think you will be surprised by anything in this story.

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

Brown whitewashes the life of Gary Coleman into a fictional character named Eugene Owen. After doing nonfiction biographies of Andy Kaufman and Andre the Giant, it seems odd that Brown decides to take a fictionalized and satirical approach here. Fear of litigation, maybe? Unfortunately, the satire is extremely tame. Instead of using the freedom of fiction to generate some over-the-top humor or drive home a big idea, the story is pretty paint-by-the-numbers, sticking so close to the format of the tragic child star bio docs on E! and VH1 as to be indistinguishable. This is not This is Spinal Tap; it's just Gary Coleman's odd and sad life without factual accountability. Disappointing.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Hollywood makes you grow up fast”.

Based on true stories of television child stars of the 1980s, this graphic novel basically fictionalizes the life of Gary Coleman, star of Different Strokes, as Owen Eugene and is heavy on the nostalgia factor.

Told as if this story were a documentary, we know almost immediately Owen is dead, as he is spoken about in the past tense by his family and business associates who recount his life. His parents share his early years and the health problems that would stunt his growth, making him look younger than his actual years. This served him well for many years, as he could portray a character younger than himself, but had the intelligence to make it seem as if he were a comedic prodigy. He became the breakout child star in a sitcom, with the catchphrase "I don’t understand” becoming his Achilles heel in later years. Behind-the-scene manipulation of sitcom storylines shows the artificiality of it all, with the child actors taking the brunt of it. His parents, agents and producers use Owen for their own gain. He never gets to rest, as he is hustled from his television series to various television movies with no break for years. When he becomes a teenager, he is still forced into juvenile roles as he looks much younger, and when he truly begins to look older the roles dry up as his short stature and typecasting prevent him from being taken seriously in adult roles. His adult life is a series of disappointments, with two disastrous marriages (some issues are brought up but not explored) and a steady decline in his health.

The artwork is cartoonish, drawn with broad strokes. The layout is comic strip style, often with nine equal panels. A limited color palette was used- black and white with different color gradients of pink and red for shading. The art captures the essence of the many different people being interviewed, with a few caricatures of real people like Ronald and Nancy Reagan and Farrah Fawcett.

Pop culture is laid bare in this narrative, with adult readers like myself, uncomfortably looking back at the sitcoms of our youth. I couldn't help but feel bad for stars of my youth like Coleman and Emmanual Lewis who couldn't make the move from child star to adult actor. Even actors and actresses with no physical impairments were so jaded and broken by the system, that drug abuse and faded careers became the norm for some of them. And while this book spotlights the heyday of the 80s sitcom, has Hollywood fared better nowadays? Today many failed young Disney actors or musical pop groups have fame yanked away from them. While not a perfect book, this sobering story will make you think about what secrets lie behind the laugh tracks.  (Actual rating 3.5/5)

This review can also be found on my blog: https://graphicnovelty2.com/2021/01/2...

[Jenn Adams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh.
I absolutely loved this concept - a graphic tell-all biography of a fictional child star? That has SO much potential.
Sadly, this fell absolutely flat for me. To make this work, it could have gone one of two ways: laugh-out-loud funny or convincingly emotional. Instead this read like dry nonfiction and I would have put it down without finishing had it not been an ARC. I didn't *care* about any of the people and it also wasn't funny. On top of that, I really didn't vibe with the art style.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the author says this is a compilation of child stars that have been chewed up and spit out by the Hollywood machine, it very heavily leans on the life of Gary Coleman, who was stunted in his growth and so could play a child much longer than most children.

In the fictionalized version, Owen Eugene has something that also caused his growth to be stunted, and so can pass for much younger than he really is.

The story is told in a series of interviews with his co-stars, his parents, his agents, and all the people who knew him. There are also "scenes" from some of the shows, where we get to see what the plots of the shows were like. It is very 1980s.

It gives a well rounded background for this fictional child actor, and you can picture what his life must have been like.

Very well done.

[Davina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think it was interesting how expertly Brown nailed the whole documentary format in this graphic novel. In the author's note, Brown explains that this story is intended to be an amalgam of the experiences of many child actors and a tribute to that struggle. I think he was so successful in capturing that familiar story that it resulted in a pretty predictable and boring read.

[Jeanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I confess I'm surprised at how much I liked this book. It's the story of a fictional child actor done as if it is a documentary after his death. While the book isn't based on one particular real child star, there are strong parallels with Gary Coleman and others. Brown did a great job of using real incidents as a basis-- Reagan's reaction to "Day After," the cut-throat search for newer and cuter child actors, the problems of aging out of a series, and more. I was reminded of so many things-- including many that I am sure Brown didn't intend. Owen, the child star in question, is shown only through the eyes of those around him-- his parents, who managed him, his co-stars, his ex-wife, his TV interviews-- and never has the chance to speak for himself, which is in keeping with the pattern. Even those stars who have written their bios seem conscious of how they will appear to fans, shading events both pro and con. At the end, though, Brown delivers a moving, emotionally true portrait that had me questioning so much of what I saw on TV growing up.

[Peter Derk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is great.

I want to address a review that says this is a whitewashing of Gary Coleman's story:

This book is a definite fictional mash-up of tons of child stars with a lot of fiction thrown in.

Whitewashing is taking a story featuring a person of color and changing the character to a white person to make it more palatable to a white audience.

I think this may be a case of whitewashing to make a story more palatable, but in a very different way.

The child star depicted in this book is...not a sympathetic character, for the most part. He's not shown as a good guy. He's not an aspirational character, and the sympathy is complicated because he doesn't seem like a nice dude, but the reader also has to wonder how much of that is his fault. If anyone were raised in those circumstances, they really can be excused for being unpleasant. The star of the book isn't like a sexual predator or a criminal, he's just not all that into people, he's rude, and he's not shown to be all that smart or clever. It's what makes the book interesting. It tells you about a character, and I suspect different readers will walk away feeling differently about the character.

The character is not directly interviewed "for the book" and does not "speak" in the book. The book is like a profile of this character. Think of what you'd see on a 20/20 where the person they're profiling isn't interviewed directly for this particular project. So the character is, in a way, voiceless in the book.

Here's the issue: It's my opinion that at this time, readers want diverse characters, but they don't necessarily want those diverse characters to be complicated. This is why, for example, comics have more diverse heroes, but nobody really talks about the diversity of the villains. Nobody complains that Joker, Two-Face, Riddler, Catwoman, Penguin, Clayface, Harley Quinn, Mr. Freeze, Mad Hatter, Scarecrow, all white. Bane has a white father and Latina mother, but few have mentioned his all-white casting in movies and TV as whitewashing. Killer Croc is black, although I think there's a relevant argument here that a crocodile man's ethnicity is probably not going to inform him, culturally, as much as the other obvious factors...

In fact, early in the Miles Morales days, I read many complaints because Miles' uncle was a criminal. "Oh, so the criminal is black." Well...yes, but the main hero is as well (black and Puerto Rican), and his father, a black man, is a former criminal, now a police officer (the father and uncle, brothers, got in trouble together when they were young).

Anyway, I think that when you depict a heroic character, diversity is a really important factor to readers. And maybe, when the hero is a villain, people are less inclined to tally the diversity of the characters. I understand the concept, that people want to see themselves reflected in the stories they read, and I don't think most people want to see themselves in The Joker, or at least aren't going to make a stink about not getting the opportunity to see themselves in Gotham's most notorious killer. I know that little white kids have the opportunity to see themselves in a lot of heroes, but if we're going on looks, I was a lot more Doctor Octopus (bowl cut, questionable fashion, corrective lenses) than I was Captain America.

Don't confuse me for complaining about this. I don't particularly care if every villain stays white forever, if they are diversified, whatever. What I'm getting at is that I think the movement regarding diverse books is in the early stages, showing characters of different races, but it's still not succeeding in making them super 3-dimensional, good and bad, and I think that's especially clear when we're talking about complicated characters, characters who aren't good or bad, they're just...real.

Let's bring it back to Child Star.

If Box Brown depicted the character as black, he would have to work through, in public, the commentary of people who feel he depicted a black character a certain way, and if the character were the same and was not admirable, that could be a problem.

There's also the possibility that making the character black makes him undeniably Gary Coleman, and that comes with the baggage of people taking what you do with the character and turning into a narrative about Gary Coleman. "Gary Coleman never did that." "I always found Gary Coleman very pleasant." Your accuracy to Gary Coleman's life becomes a big part of the way people read this, and I don't think that was the target of Box Brown's work. Brown did a great profile of Andre the Giant, and I think if he wanted to do another, he would've done a great Gary Coleman book.

Sometimes you want to do things with a character that make the story better or more interesting, but you don't want readers to apply those things to a specific person. I read Child Star without assuming any of the behaviors were true of Gary Coleman.

So, this book is whitewashed? Maybe. The character is white, and I do think that makes the character more palatable to today's audiences. But not in the traditional way where the audience is expected to like this character, to want to befriend him or whatever. If it's whitewashed, it's my guess that this is because the author doesn't want to be perceived as beating up on black characters.

It's also possible that this is strongly based on Gary Coleman, and Box Brown didn't want to disrespect Coleman's memory with some of the storylines or didn't have access to conversations or co-stars of Coleman's, so it'd be difficult to do this in a sensitive, ethical way.

[Kris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Loosely based on some child stars of the 80s that us kids of the 80s will easily recognize, this quick read packs a punch. Child star Owen Eugene is precocious and adorable and annoying, and it is impossible not to feel horribly guilty by association for being a part of a world that allows children to be used and discarded. There are shadows of Gary Coleman here, obviously, but it is easier to count the child stars that came out without permanent damage than the ones who either died or had to overcome HUGE traumas to have a semi-normal adult life. The art in this one is not my favorite, but it suits the storyline, which is powerful.

[Rex Hurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

A semi-fictional account of the rise and fall of a child star from the 1980s. From some reviews, certain people seem to think that this was supposed to be humorous in some ways, but the author usually takes his subject seriously - Tetris, Andre the Giant, Andy Kaufman, and so forth. The text seems to be primarily based on the life of Gary Coleman. In fact, it was so close I'm not sure why the author didn't just do one on the dead star. It's a tale we've read before. A train wreck of a life. Famous too early, all the problems which go along with that, terrible parents, then the inevitable turn from superstar to punchline.

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A graphic novel 'documentary' about Owen Eugene a fictional child star. This is essentially the biography of Gary Coleman with a change of skin color and a dash of Macauley Culkin's bio for plausible deniability. '80s and '90s kids will dig the references to "very special episodes" that dotted our childhood landscape, but "I remember that!" does not make for a compelling story.

[Spooky · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite the huge potential of 80's nostalgia and the trappings of child stardom, I didn't feel like the author capitalized on either. And the "off brand" references were a bit painful. So I'm just gonna go drink a Sprute and watch some Crowded House with a cameo from my favourite TV star, Mr. P. "I feel bad for the fool!"

[Nakedfartbarfer · Rating 4 out of 5]

All of Box Brown’s output is meticulous and accessible, and he makes a lot of understated plays for laughs. I liked his Andy Kaufman bio and his book on the convoluted history of Tetris. Nonfiction comics are great for reading about stuff that I might not otherwise bother with. After penning a biography of Andre the Giant, idk why Box Brown chose to fictionalize this medley of (primarily) Gary Coleman and a few other child actors, because he didn’t take many liberties, but it was good. And sad.

[Helen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was just a tedious downer of a story.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this. It was fictional, but its like an amalgamation of so many 70's-90's tropes of child stars.

[The Library Ladies · Rating 3 out of 5]

(originally reviewed at thelibraryladies.com )

Thanks to NetGalley for sending me an eARC of this graphic novel!

My love for “The Lost Boys” meant that when Corey Haim died I sat down and cried very deeply. He (and his costar and friend Corey Feldman) were two child stars who were plagued by personal demons that were brought on by fame (and all the bad things and people that come with it), so his death by overdose was tragic, but not surprising. He was just one in a long line of child stars whose life turned to tragedy. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t thinking of Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, Gary Coleman, and so many others as I read Box Brown’s new graphic novel “Child Star”. Which is, of course, the point.

This is kind of new for Brown, as up until now his graphic novels have been non-fiction. “Child Star” is written in a faux documentary style, so the approach feels like a ‘True Hollywood Story’ kind of tale. I definitely found it interesting that even in a fictional take (though arguably this is the life of Gary Coleman, fictionalized) Brown approaches the content in a just the facts manner. We are told the story of Owen Eugene, a child actor whose popularity exploded due to a 1980s family sitcom, and his small stature as caused by a genetic disorder. We see Eugene’s rise and fall through the eyes of family, friends, and colleagues, and trace how his life in Hollywood changed, and ruined, his life. I really enjoyed the documentary style put on the page, and liked how it truly felt like I was watched a seedy VH1 TV show as I read it. From his parents who clearly took advantage of their son’s fame to the predatory higher ups in Hollywood to the people who knew Eugene due to personal and professional settings, Brown creates a very well thought out, and incredibly tragic, tale of a person all based on the perceptions of those around him, and the reliability and unreliability of their words. Owen Eugene as a character is always a bit of a mystery because of this secondary source template, but I think that we get a nuanced and complex characterization, even if it’s being told through the eyes of others. He has a lot of analogs in real life, and while Gary Coleman is clearly the main influence the sad truth is that so many child stars suffer similar paths and fates that you can see many others inside of this tale.

There is a certain nostalgia on these pages to go with the pathos, and that is for 1980s family sitcoms. I was a little too young to experience it in real time, though I saw my share of reruns of “Growing Pains” and “Who’s The Boss” thanks to syndication. “Child Star” taps into the feel for how these sitcoms would play out, their plots derivative and their casts charming if not a little generic. What struck me the most, however, was how Box worked in the whole way that politics and Nancy Reagan’s ideals would weasel their way into these shows and put forth ‘very special episodes’ about various societal ills. Looking back at those episodes through more modern lenses usually means that we see how cloying they are (especially the ‘don’t do drug’ episodes; I remember rewatching the “Growing Pains episode where frat boys offer Michael cocaine and then mock him when he says no. Coke is EXPENSIVE. No one is going to mock you for saying no, it’s more for them!). It also comments on how Owen was just used in a whole different way for other peoples motives, even if those other people were the President and First Lady.

I will say that while I haven’t had issues with Brown’s art style in the past, for some reason in “Child Star” it felt a little out of place and took away from the impact. I think that part of it is because in the other books I’ve read by him, the stories do have emotional aspects, but are also filled with hope and a little bit of whimsy. In “Child Star” it just feels like a tragedy, and therefore seeing the very cartoony illustrations was a little jarring.

Overall, “Child Star” is another well done graphic novel by Box Brown. It’s a bummer to be sure, but also interesting to look at these issues that no doubt still haunt various celebrities.

[Joanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite brilliant! Told in documentary style with the main subject never uttering a word, this graphic novel is an amalgamation of the lives of TV child actors of the 70s-80s-90s; I found myself variously thinking of Gary Coleman, Emmanuel Lewis, and Mason Reese. Painfully illustrates how Hollywood is the only occupation which unfairly cancels its child actors for growing up and changing, while robbing most of them of true childhoods. Tragic and awesomely executed.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you to first second for this advance reader copy. All opinions below are my own. Child Star depicts the absent childhood and inevitable decline of an ur-child actor who can never evolve beyond his starring sitcom role. Eugene, who stands in for all child actors who look too young/small to play as adults or those whose real appeal was cuteness and a catch-phrase, wants both to be treated as an adult and also fixates on the freedom and play of a childhood he never experienced. His parents are self-absorbed enablers who are more than happy to spend all of his money. The art style reminds me of newspaper strips like Peanuts and Kathy, fitting well with the 70s family sitcom vibe.

Where this falls short for me is that it feels like a graphic novel version of any tabloid-y memoir or biography. We never get to explore Eugene's need to feel normal, resistance to having sex, or lack of acknowledgement from the inside. To the end, he feels played off as a joke, and the comic comes across as shallow. Perhaps the author intended the comic to provide the same bland commentary on D-list celebrities as we get from entertainment news. However, I don't really feel like that is something we lack, or that it stands out as a hyper-aware, subtle criticism of entertainment consumer culture.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Box Brown's darkly loving homage to 80s-90s lowest forms of popular entertainment. Follows the life & career of a character combining aspects of every child star of the era. The details on the various fictitious publications & fake movie posters are great. Like many other Box Brown books, Child Star explores the meeting of celebrity, pop culture, & nostalgia. I look forward to seeing his thoughts on the subject in The He-Man Effect. I feel like Brown wanted us to suspect lil' Owen's parents were trying to make him small from the start, so that they could have a child star. Very reminiscent of Bojack Horseman, but without any promise of a redemptive arc.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

*Thanks to Netgalley for a free advance copy*

A fictionalized, docu-style treatment of child stars seems like a can't-miss concept, but it falls a little flat as the main character is mostly presented through the words of other people. I don't feel like this book contributed to the societal dialogue of child stars, but rather just re-made a familiar narrative in comic form.

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A graphic novel 'documentary' about Owen Eugene a fictional child star. This is essentially the biography of Gary Coleman with a change of skin color and a dash of Macauley Culkin's bio for plausible deniability. '80s and '90s kids will dig the references to "very special episodes" that dotted our childhood landscape, but "I remember that!" does not make for a compelling story.

[Jon Hewelt · Rating 5 out of 5]

ReRead 24 August 2024
---
ReRead 19 November 2020
---
The only problem with Child Star is waiting for Box Brown's next book to come out. This is his best work yet!

[Diana Flores · Rating 3 out of 5]

With Brown's research skills, this could have been better as a look at a real celebrity who got their start as a child actor.

[Carin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well this was different! Box Brown's books up to this point have all been nonfiction, and I really loved his books on Andre the Giant and Tetris. I knew this one would be great as I love his style and I also am a fan of pop culture from the 1970s and 1980s, which inspired this novel.

It is about a child star, a kid named Owen Eugene, who has a disability that keeps him very small (think Gary Coleman meets Emmanuel Lewis) so he's playing children much younger than his real age (although sometimes lying about his real age and seeming oddly precocious). He's in some commercials and then a TV show and then he breaks out! He has a catchphrase and toys and lunchboxes and everything! And it's great for a couple of years--during the summer hiatus he makes movies--but of course, it inevitably ends. He's no longer so cute, but he also doesn't physically grow up and can't play real adult roles, and his parents squandered a lot of his money. He cobbles together bit parts here and there, has a couple of strange sexless marriages, and then there's the inevitable end. The book is presented in documentary format as if it's interviews with his parents, his agents, co-stars, and his two wives. Sadly, you'll notice I didn't say "friends" in that list. Some co-stars did consider them friends at the time, but afterwards saw their relationship differently.

This character of Owen Eugene is an amalgam of several child stars from that era, and you can see snippets here and there that you can identify with old tabloid stories. The book manages to be both nostalgic and sad at the same time. As a case study of what often went wrong in that era of unprecedented child popularity, this is masterful. But don't go into this thinking it'll be cute and fun. There's a dark side to all child stars, even the one who survive.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

An impressively dense and thorough look at the child star phenomenon, Child Star looks at Owen Eugene and his run on a famous fictional show. Brown’s nonfiction or mockumentary approach gives the reader the perfect perspective to meet Eugene’s sidelined co-stars, greedy parents, and aggressive network executives. Each faction sits on their island with little understanding of the others except for what will get themselves the best bottom line.

After a meteoric rise to popularity, Owen slides back down to earth and his stardom starts to fade. This was both the most tragic part of the book as well as the most engrossing. I was fascinated by how Brown incorporated many of the examples from the well-known stars of the 80s and 90s. Soleil Moon Frye, Gary Coleman, and Ricky Schroder… you can see evidence of their and other actors examples on each page of the book.

My only criticism is that at times I was a little tired of the artwork. This is my third book by Brown (Andre the Giant and Cannabis: The Illegalization of Weed in America) and I’m always blown away with his plot arcs, but the cartoony art style is so similar to his other pieces… I was left wanting some variety.

An informative and at times gripping account of the rise and fall of fictional “Child Star” Owen Eugene.

For my full review: https://paulspicks.blog/2020/07/01/ch...

For all my reviews: https://paulspicks.blog

[Ben Truong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Child Star is a graphic novel written and illustrated by Brian "Box" Brown. This savvy satire depicts the life of an eighties child star that has fallen from the worlds' consciousness.

The tragicomic narrative follows Owen Eugene, a 1980s child star who is reminiscent of real-life actors Gary Coleman. Appearing younger than his age due to a congenital disorder, Eugene becomes a sitcom superstar playing a kid with a sassy catchphrase, and his life goes downhill from there – from having his face plastered on lunch boxes to struggling to land ironic TV cameos, and separating from his exploitative parents along the way.

The graphic novel is done in a mockumentary format, which pieces together from the testimonies of supporting actors in his life: directors, costars, estranged family members, and his pro-basketball-player buddy. However Eugene, who never gets to speak for himself except in media clips, remains an enigma.

Child Star is written and constructed rather well. Brown works in such elements as Eugene's bizarre Saturday morning cartoon, his sitcom's slew of very special episodes, and his descent into desperation. The blocky art moves the narrative along at an enjoyable clip, and it's appropriate that Eugene, irresistible to TV-land fans, often looks lumpy and off-putting.

All in all, Child Star is a wonderful graphic novel, about achieving childhood fame during the eighties and the aftermath.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really loved the way this book went about discussing child stardom and the problems it causes for these kids and the ways that it affects their social relationships. It also goes into the manipulation that is present in this industry on all levels, the people working on these movies and shows, the other kids on the movie/show, these kids’ parents, the people who are fans or viewers of these movies/shows, etc. It also goes into the greed and the intense capitalism that is present with the people who are profiting off of these kids and the parents of these kids as well. It also tells us how you sometimes go through all of these very difficult things as a child to make this media but you could possibly be forgotten about after your show/movie is over or has reached its peak. We make fun of “child stars” but it is very difficult to go through all of these things especially when you’re very young. People are manipulating and hurting these kids all for their own profit and it’s so sad to see.

[Vera Elwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finally completed all of Box Brown's work! Unfortunately, I accidentally ended with my least favorite of his books. I went into this book without looking into it at all and was a few pages in before I realized that it was a fiction book rather than Brown's usual nonfiction, which came as a surprise. I actually think the idea of a fictional biographical graphic novel (think The Office's fake documentary style, but in graphic novel form) is a fascinating one. I just think this particular venture was a little weak. I would have loved to see a more in depth look into the main character's downfall and deteriorating mental state. I understand the urge to have the main character die (this isn't a spoiler. It's evident from the first few pages that he's dead), but it would have been interesting to mix in some later-in-life interviews with him.

[jude · Rating 4 out of 5]

i rly enjoyed this!! it felt very much like reading a documentary. it analyzes owen, the fictional child star, from all sorts of angles, by interviewing all different people who were involved in his life. but it doesn't get too in-depth because it never interviews owen himself. some ppl seem to think that's a flaw, but i think that was absolutely intentional and a commentary on the kind of pop cultural documentary that the book is imitating.

anyway. i liked it. it made me want to read gary coleman's wikipedia page. i'm gonna do that now.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hollywood can be an ugly place, especially for young actors. I often wonder why anyone would let their child into the industry after all the things that we've learned over the years. Or at least why they wouldn't keep close watch on them.
Brown tells the story of a fictional child actor, Owen Eugene, who represents many of the real-life individuals who have gone through similar situations. It's heartbreaking to read, and even more so when you think of the actual people whose lives have been so affected or even destroyed because of this world. I thought Brown did a great job.