The Book of Memory Gaps

Ruiz, a graphic designer and illustrator, pairs pale somewhat lonely illustrations and very short prose to create a series of tiny vignettes in her debut book, which is only a comic by the most tenuous of definitions. The well-crafted prose manages to be simple in vocabulary yet complex in meaning, and encourages readers toward further thought. The volume is deliberately full of white space, which speaks nicely to the ideas of memory%E2%80%94of gaps and loss%E2%80%94and the way people interpret and experience such things. That said, for a book that takes about five minutes to read, the price point is tough to swallow. Though the prose is insightful and haunting and will stay with more introspective readers, there's not enough content to justify the price, and those who pick the book up expecting a comic or an engaging narrative are likely to come away disappointed. (Mar.)