{"id":16164,"date":"2012-01-19T10:06:48","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T15:06:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=16164"},"modified":"2014-05-16T17:44:55","modified_gmt":"2014-05-16T21:44:55","slug":"tinas-mouth-an-existential-comic-diary-by-keshni-kashyap-illustrated-by-mari-araki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/tinas-mouth-an-existential-comic-diary-by-keshni-kashyap-illustrated-by-mari-araki\/","title":{"rendered":"Tina&#8217;s Mouth: An Existential Comic Diary by Keshni Kashyap, illustrated by Mari Araki"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2012\/01\/Tinas-Mouth.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-27720\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2012\/01\/tinas-mouth.jpg\" alt=\"POOJA - Notre Dame MBA 2011\" width=\"128\" height=\"164\" \/><\/a>&#8220;Dear Mr. Jean Paul Sartre, I know that you are dead and old and also a philosopher. So, on an obvious level, you and I do not have a lot in common.&#8221; Thus begins 15-year-old Tina&#8217;s class project for her English Honors elective on existential philosophy. And what an angst-ridden, beguiling, contemplative, delightful\u00a0exploration of teenage-hood it proves to be.<\/p>\n<p>Tina has just started the second half of her sophomore year at Yarborough Academy, &#8220;just a boring school started by some guy who died eons ago.&#8221; She&#8217;s &#8220;a pretty good student. A decent violin player. And a bit of an intellectual.&#8221; She has two older (overachieving) siblings \u2013 her architect-trained artist sister, her internet wife-seeking surgeon-to-be brother\u00a0\u2013\u00a0who, now well into their 20s, are dealing with their own self-discovery. To the &#8220;question I get asked the most &#8230; What are you, REALLY?&#8221; she answers &#8220;I&#8217;m an Alien (But my parents are Indian.).&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In just six short months (eight if you count the &#8220;Epilogue&#8221;), Tina&#8217;s high school-centered life goes through some existentially significant changes. She loses her best friend to &#8220;a new group of friends with whom she could discuss slutty clothes and cheesy poetry,&#8221; has her first date and first kiss (sort of twice), gets cast as the lead in the school play, falls in love, gets lovesick, and fights off what she calls &#8220;CEM or Chronic Existential Malaise.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lest I&#8217;ve somehow caused you to think even for a millisecond that this is your same-old, same-old teenage tale, please let me dispel any such misconceptions: creators <a href=\"http:\/\/keshnikashyap.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Keshni Kashyap<\/a> (who is also a filmmaker, and making her publishing debut here) and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mariaraki.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Mari Araki<\/a> are far too clever and original for that. How else could they combine Krishna, a Samoan Mormon convert, &#8220;tacky pieces of art like statues of white people doing ballet and kissing,&#8221; <em>Rashomon<\/em>, Camus <em>and<\/em>\u00a0Kierkegaard, skateboards, nirvana, and horse tranquilizers to get such stellar results?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Young Adult, Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2012<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Dear Mr. Jean Paul Sartre, I know that you are dead and old and also a philosopher. So, on an obvious level, you and I do not have a lot in common.&#8221; Thus begins 15-year-old Tina&#8217;s class project for her English Honors elective on existential&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,73,53,426,18,31],"tags":[6608,58,10,11,397,1237,13,1238,79,1239],"class_list":["post-16164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-fiction","category-graphic-novel-manga-manwha","category-indian-american","category-japanese-american","category-south-asian-american","category-young-adult-readers","tag-bookdragon","tag-coming-of-age","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-humor","tag-keshni-kashyap","tag-love","tag-mari-araki","tag-school-challenges","tag-tinas-mouth-an-existential-comic-diary"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Tina&#039;s Mouth: An Existential Comic Diary by Keshni Kashyap, illustrated by Mari Araki - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/tinas-mouth-an-existential-comic-diary-by-keshni-kashyap-illustrated-by-mari-araki\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tina&#039;s Mouth: An Existential Comic Diary by Keshni Kashyap, illustrated by Mari Araki - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;Dear Mr. Jean Paul Sartre, I know that you are dead and old and also a philosopher. 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