In The Diary of a Teenage Girl by Phoebe Gloeckner (Frog Ltd/North Atlantic Books), Minnie Goetze shares her story of growing up in anything-goes 1970s San Francisco, using words, drawings and comics. It’s the year Minnie becomes sexually curious and she’s not afraid to embrace her desires and act on her physical longings. She’s smart but school bores her. She spends her time writing and drawing—and, increasingly, having casual sex and taking drugs in a search for love and acceptance. The adults in her world encourage her to walk the straight and narrow but there’s not much guidance from her clued-out, hedonistic mom or her ex-stepfather, who happens to be sleeping with one of Minnie’s friends. This is some of the most frank and original writing about being a teen girl that I have ever seen—no moralizing, nothing predictable, utterly compelling.