Helpful Score: 5
I can't speak highly enough of this book. If you like intelligent books, you need to read it. If you like graphic novels, you need to read it. Bechdel became my comic writing role model with this book, basically.
Helpful Score: 3
Lesbian/gay or straight, I think you'll enjoy this "tragicomic." To be honest, although it was called a graphic memoir, I didn't realize this is quite literally a comic book, though it is not fanciful but an actual portrayal of her life from years eightish to twenty.
This book/comic mainly seems to deal with her relationship with her father, both before and after death. It might seem a bit repititious to some.
Most of all, I enjoyed her comparisons to Proust, Fitzgerald, et cetera throughout the book; her father taught high school English and it's quite obvious she's well-read. She uses similes about other authors in a funny way.
Anyhow, overall, a great book. For a comic book, it's very verbose.
I would not recommend you lend this to your children (unless you're liberal about those kind of things); pictures exist that show her and her girlfriend in bed (nothing too graphic, I assure you).
This book/comic mainly seems to deal with her relationship with her father, both before and after death. It might seem a bit repititious to some.
Most of all, I enjoyed her comparisons to Proust, Fitzgerald, et cetera throughout the book; her father taught high school English and it's quite obvious she's well-read. She uses similes about other authors in a funny way.
Anyhow, overall, a great book. For a comic book, it's very verbose.
I would not recommend you lend this to your children (unless you're liberal about those kind of things); pictures exist that show her and her girlfriend in bed (nothing too graphic, I assure you).
Helpful Score: 2
Truly a hauntingly dark comedy about the realizations we make about our parents and ourselves. What defines us may be only a shadow of what defined them.
An amazing memoir. The orchestration and pacing of it are lovely and the last page gave me chills for weeks. This is the first book I recommend to people who have never read a graphic novel before, Bechdel really uses the medium to full effect.
Helpful Score: 1
Interesting and provocative book...I now know what a "graphic novel" is! I enjoyed her literary contrasting of her father, with Joyce and Proust. Enjoyed her humor, and especially her introspection of life with her family, versus others and stories from great literature. What a sense of loss for her, right as she was coming to terms with her lesbianism. What a relationship they could have had if he had lived. I enjoyed this; moves quickly...like a comic "graphic novel"!
