Abigail Malate
Not a Love Story
"Not a Love Story" is an illustrated short story following the conversations of Emmy and Cara, longtime friends since high school. The story begins in the present, with Emmy and Cara as college seniors arriving at a beach house in North Carolina for a weekend holiday. While there, they begin to reminisce about their high school years, the time they first met by butting heads over a crush. The story oscillates between the past and present. As they talk, they begin to understand how the past has shaped them, and a lingering hope and unease emerge about the future beyond college. Stylistically, I layered paper, watercolor, handwritten fonts, and pencil to give a scrapbook feel to the story. As one flips through the pages, this creates the effect of rifling through the scattered notes and papers of a high school girl. Ultimately hand bound with speckled paper, the binding evokes that of a personal journal, reflecting the nostalgic quality of the overall story.
