they had whatever strangeness of proportion, of oddness or humanity it is that makes a beauty something more than a shop window dummy.

Short and light read. Love this one even the story little rush in ending.

"I will never forget that moment, or forget the expression on Stella's face as she watched Vic hurrying away from her. Even in death I shall remember that. Her clothes were in disarray, and there was makeup smudged across her face, and her eyes-You wouldn't want to make a universe angry. I bet an angry universe would look at you with eyes like that." In this graphic novel adaption of "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" which was nominated for the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Short Story and won the Locus Award for Best Short Story, Gaiman conjures up an eerie coming of age story that is not only about the differences between the sexes (men viewing women as foreign creatures or "aliens") but could also be read as a parable for how to treat girls (i.e. don't take advantage of them because, because after all, you wouldn't want to make the universe angry). It is also a great story that investigates (like so many stories from Gaiman have a tendency to do) childhood memory and the loss of childhood innocence through the lens of the fantastical. The story is pretty simple. It is about a couple of British 1970s teen-aged boys, Enn and Vic, who go to a party to meet girls, only to find that the girls are very different from the boys' expectations. But the story goes deeper than that. Enn, who doesn't really know how to interact with girls (or so he thinks) encounters three "alien beings" who attempt to express their loneliness, their thirst for knowledge, imperfection, fear of death, and need to communicate their stories. His friend, Vic is a more superficial, takes off upstairs with the girl Stella (Star), and he gets more than he bargained for-as the universe finds him lacking. Enn's last meeting is with Triolet, who pours her story/poem into his being. This story in the form of a poem changes him. Enn can recognize and access the story inherent in the music playing in the house amidst the stars and the universe. Just then, however, Vic dashes up and says they have to leave. Triolet is disappointed that she doesn’t get to finish her poem, but Vic is insistent. Enn looks up the stairs and sees the disheveled Stella, whose eyes he would never forget Thirty years later, as Enn is telling the story, he recalls that Stella's eyes looked like an angry universe. The boys run for a long time, until Vic stops and throws up in the gutter. He begins to sob as he tries to explain what he’s experienced. Enn says he still can’t imagine what Vic saw that night that terrified him so badly. Enn tries to remember the poem Triolet told him, but he cannot. What is interesting about this story is the fact that both the girls and Enn seem to be travelers and in search of something. Enn seems like he searching for deeper connections and meaning and so are the girls. In contrast, Vic was only concerned with a more primal connection and well, upset a superior being in the process. The story happens only through the course of a few hours yet encompasses eons of extrapolated human nature. How does Gaiman do it? I would be remiss if I didn't mention Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba, the folks who adapted this story into its graphic form, as they manage to create a strangely unique place in the everyday world that Gaiman has created. The artwork manages to highlight some of the stranger but subtle parts of the story well through its playful use of watercolors. Highly recommended.

This has never been one of my favourite Gaiman stories, but the art by the Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon is fabulous and helped me focus on the wonderful otherworldliness of the women rather than the protagonist's frustrating "but how does talk to girls" monologue.

Good art, was excited to see it was Neil Gaiman, ultimately felt it was disappointing, unfortunately.

I just love Gaiman but this simply didn't do it for me. I've never liked short stories much (it's actually the first I read by Gaiman) but here the problem wasn't the "short" part of it, it's just that I didn't enjoy the story itself and I found it completely uninteresting.

It's so...hauntingly beautiful...

Finished during #readathon

I don't know. Didn't like it much. Like... I've seen the concepts like this before, the execution wasn't thrilling... I read somewhere that Gaiman wrote it in like one afternoon after he had completely no idea but he decided that he's gonna do it and to be honest, I can feel it. It feels like a quickly written short story. Well, no one can create with 100% efficiency all of the time.

Funny little short story.

This was not my cup of tea. I just could not get into it.

I appreciate the idea, but once again, as it always appears to be with Gaiman and me, it didn't necessarily work.

Gaiman, you're not for me. That's all. I recognize that he writes very pretty lines, but his style is not something I look forward in books. Don't get me wrong, I love ambiguous fantasy/sci-fi stories, but I love them when the alternate world is quite interesting. So far, I have read The Ocean at the End of the Lane and How to Talk to Girls at Parties, and I had the same problem with the both of them. I liked that the reality they present is magical but ambiguous (it could be interpreted as fantasy or reality) but the alternate worlds seemed dull to me. In this case, How to Talk to Girls at Parties could be interpreted as the story of two boys that go to a party, but one of them doesn't understand girls at all, girls are aliens to him. The other way to interpreted it is that the girls in that house are really aliens that came to Earth. Both interpretations seem dull to me. The first one is just gross. Girls don't talk in other language, we are not a copy of a copy of a model of girl who likes things that boys don't. I mean... we are all different from each other. The second one... if you want me to believe that the girls are from another part of the Universe, please develop their back story a little more. The ending is the only thing I liked. Yeah, when that bastard Vic gets what he deserves for threating women like mere objects to fuck with. Anyway, his reaction to it was gross too. So I didn't like it that much I guess...

Interesting book, kind of odd.