Sheets by Brenna Thummler

Sheets

by Brenna Thummler

"For days after reading Brenna Thummler's SheetsI have been wandering my neighborhood, haunted, enchanted, and in need offreshly pressed clothing." -LemonySnicket

Marjorie Glatt feels like a ghost. Apractical thirteen-year-old in charge of the family laundry business, her dailyroutine features unforgiving customers, unbearable P.E. classes, and thefastidious Mr. Saubertuck who is committed to destroying everything she's workedfor.

Wendell is a ghost. A boy who lost hislife much too young, his daily routine features ineffective death therapy, asheet-dependent identity, and a dangerous need to seek purpose in the forbiddenhuman world.

When their worlds collide,Marjorie is confronted by unexplainable disasters as Wendell transforms Glatt'sLaundry into his midnight playground, appearing as a mere sheet during the day.While Wendell attempts to create a new afterlife for himself, he unknowinglysabotages the life that Marjorie is struggling tomaintain.

Sheets illustrates thedetermination of a young girl to fight, even when all parts of her world seem tobe conspiring against her. It proves that second chances are possible whetherlife feels over or life is over. But above all, it is a story of the forgivenessand unlikely friendship that can only transpire inside a hauntedlaundromat.

"Brenna Thummler's first originalgraphic novel is a reason to celebrate. She announced herself as an artist toreckon with when she illustrated Mariah Marsden's adaptation of Anne of GreenGables. Now she's illustrated her own story of ghosts and family, loneliness andlaundromats. I'm sure you'll be captivated, and as eager as I am to see whatcomes next!"-Brian Selznick, author of Wonderstruck and The Inventionof Hugo Cabret
"Sweet, sad, funny, warm, and beautiful. If I can beforgiven for using this word, this is one that will haunt me, in the bestway."-Dana Simpson

Reviewed by Quirky Cat on

4 of 5 stars

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I received a copy of Sheets through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Sheets was written and illustrated by the talented Brenna Thummler, and according to the intro at the beginning it was done so as a way of coping with all the anxiety and everything else in her life. I hope it helped her, and hopefully it’ll help you too.
You can kind of get a good idea of the core concept of Sheets just by looking at the cover. It’s a world where ghosts are real, but in the silly Halloween sense. They have to embody sheets in order to move around and exist. It’s an interesting and fun idea.



I really enjoyed reading Sheets. The main characters, Marjorie (living human) and Wendell (ghost) are sweet, understandable, and easy to empathize with. It’s impossible not to feel for these two very different yet eerily similar characters, and over the course of the novel I found myself growing very attached to them.
I think that was why I found myself cringing at times. That sounds bad, but hear me out. Other than the ghosts in this story, everything about Marjorie’s struggles are so very human. She’s trying to take care of her family, her mother’s legacy, and goodness knows what else. All while up against a selfish man who wants to take that all away from them. So the moments when we see him acting against her are quite literally painful – as in they’re almost too hard to bear, because we don’t want to see him succeed against Marjorie and her family.
Wendell’s story is sad, but he’s such a loving and kind ghost, even if he’s a little clumsy and has trouble understanding boundaries. But then again, while he may be dead there’s no doubt that he’s still a kid. And what kid understands boundaries all that well? Now imagine a kid that can go through walls and well… you can see how it’d become an issue.
Marjorie has so much weight on her soldiers, for all the reasons I already mentioned above. While it’s tempting to look away and pretend that something like this could never happen in real life, the truth of the matter is that it does in fact happen. Kids have to step up and be the adults in their family all the time. And it’s heartbreaking. I love that Thummler didn’t shy away from this truth, and instead chose to show us Marjorie’s fight to keep what was hers.
I can’t wait to see what else Thummler comes out with. Clearly she has a talent for both writing and drawing, so I can see her going someplace with this.


For more reviews, check out Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 22 June, 2018: Finished reading
  • 22 June, 2018: Reviewed