With her dark hair and strange penchant for cats, Emily the Strange has been a kind of cultural icon for the last few years. Now, “she” has her own book detailing the lost adventures she has in “Blackrock”.

Poor Emily awakens one day to find herself with no memory of who she is, where she is, how she got there, or why cats are so friendly to her. Unlike most of us who might have sought out help from a doctor, the intrepid young heroine searches for clues for her lost identity on her own with the idea that people might be looking for her.

The writing style is more “Bridget Jones Diary” than you might think and is in diary form with a multitude of lists, but she keeps it clean. It’s a young adult book and there is absolutely no mention of drunken fist fights, sex, or cigarettes and is probably appropriate for middle school students.

“Emily the Strange: The Lost Days” is illustrated in an American-style anime, but is definitely not a Manga. It includes a map of Blackrock, with helpful notes from the young amnesiac herself. The best picture is a Missing-Child poster Emily makes of herself with the caption, “Have you Seen Me?”

The poster is not the only method she uses to find herself. Emily also uses the eternal wisdom of a Magic 8-Ball to determine more about herself and her surroundings. The questions she asks are, of course, indubitably genius. “Is Raven really the birdbrain I think she is?” with the quick 8-Ball response “It is decidedly so” and “Am I on the wrong track?” “Better not tell you now.” This definitely brought back more than a little nostalgia on my part, as the 8-Ball was definitely a big portion of my childhood.


A major  problem with this particular series of comic books and merchandise is the as yet unresolved controversy surrounding Emily the Strange. Many believe that she is merely a knock-off from Rosamund, who is a cat-loving character from Nate the Great, a 70’s children’s book.  If you look at this blog post, you will see that the similarities between Rosamund and Emily the Strange are more than striking and extend past the cats, with some of the dialogue from the original Emily the Strange items being slightly too similar too believe.