Riley: New York City— it awes me into silence sometimes... And it makes me want to shout out at the top of my lungs. Is there any place better?
The New York Four is a graphic novel by writer Brian Wood, and artist Ryan Kelly, published in 2008 by Minxnote .
The book follows four girls, Riley Wilder, Merissa Vasquez, Lona Lo, and Ren Severin, as they traverse through everyday college life in New York City. Riley, is our tour guide, if you will, since it's through her eyes that we get to experience what's happening.
There's also a small number of hints and tips, subtitled: NY 101, scattered around the book, through which we get useful advice, or interesting hangout spot suggestions, and sometimes even historical facts, about the city.
A sequel titled: The New York Five, was published by Vertigo in 2011.
The New York Four contains examples of:
- Alpha Bitch: Merissa shares certain aspects with this one.
- Asian and Nerdy: Lona is this, but she's classy too.
- Big Applesauce: Where else?
- Book Smart: The daughter of literati parents who who have pushed her hard for academic success, Riley has lived a very sheltered life with lots of academic achievement and intellectual development, (even her college roommate Lona, who is a fellow straight A student, comments rather bitterly on how easy Riley makes their classes look and seems born to succeed in academia) but has been very limited in most other ways. This comes with some predictable pitfalls in terms of shyness and low confidence, less than stellar social skills, being more connected with books or computers than people around her, and worst of all, being easy prey for people looking to emotionally manipulate her.
- Cute Bookworm: Riley, literati parents and all.
- Four-Girl Ensemble: Check!
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: Double-check!
- Hipster: Frank.
- New Year Has Come: The ending, with a climactic countdown to top it off! The symbolism of it being a new beginning for Riley, however, is undercut when Frank reaches out to her on her new phone, showing that he has turned to stalking her.
- Shout-Out: Brian Woods has lots of them inserted.
- Socially Awkward Hero: Riley, a lot.
- Tomboy: Ren.
