Jess Fink takes a novel approach to the comics memoir by framing hers as a time-travel adventure where her present self goes back to revisit her youth. Except she decides to use what she knows now to make her life better back then. Mistakes, it seems, are not solely the reserve of youth… said no one sober ever...
We Can Fix It! is a pretty shallow and uninteresting book. Often the best memoirs relate a unique experience or perspective but Fink’s young life was like anyone else’s: mundane and small. While she does relate her story well in the format, there’s little substance here to compel the reader, with Fink focusing mostly on awkward sexual encounters and ill-advised dalliances with drugs.
She attempts some unfunny humour by having her future self make out with her younger self and relates some “hysterical” encounters that could only be funny to her and maybe one other friend; the end result each time for me was silent boredom. The ending too is uninspired as Future Jess learns a banal and predictable life lesson in after-school special fashion.
Some young people have led remarkable lives which warrant an early memoir – Jess Fink’s life doesn’t. We Can Fix it! is self-obsessed narcissism from start to finish.
We Can Fix It!
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