3 out of 5

An agoraphobic and a schizophrenic walk into a bar…

Not really, but it’s a similar setup in Lilly Hunt’s Bulletin Board Dragon, in which teenaged agoraphobic Zoey lives next door to schizophrenic Louis, and a through-the-window encounter leads to a bit of bonding.  Both have found ways of processing, or perhaps attempting to process, their afflictions, with Zoey concocting an imaginary dragon that functions somewhat as her protector, and Louis taking a direct route by trying to ween himself off of his meds.

It’s hard to say what the intention of Lilly’s story is.  The small mentions we get of living with agoraphobia are definitely interesting, and the concepts on which our lead pair find common ground is the stuff of emotion-stirring meet-cutes, but that’s just it: the story feels rather light-hearted, existing only to get these two characters together for a smile.

To her credit, Hunt’s dialogue is very naturalistic, making the growth spurt in our leads’ friendship believable, but Bulletin Board Dragon is more of a snapshot tale than a full story with beginning, middle, and end.  It’s just the beginning of something.  Though it’s something interesting, for sure.