Nonfiction Graphic Novels
This is actually a reasonable chunk of what I've been reading lately.
Smile, Raina Telgemeier
I'm gonna start this review out with a disclaimer. If you are easily freaked out by dentists or the thought of teeth being problematic, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. I've had some really gnarly nightmares about my teeth thanks to this book. Please be careful.
That said. Smile is an autobiography of Telgemeier's preteen years after she tripped and knocked out her two front teeth. She goes back and forth between the dentist and the orthodontist, deals with braces and headgear and retainers and surgeries, and has to deal with middle school on top of that, which is really just not fair. Backstabbing friends and crushes and earthquakes round out the book.
Now, it's a good book. But I cannot emphasize enough that if you have issues with teeth, you should not read this book. Telgemeier gets up close and personal with the consequences of her teeth issues, and the drawings can get quite explicit. However, if you can handle it, it's a great coming-of-age story with nice throughlines and good art. Recommended with that one caveat.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 3--fascists have problems. It's a preteen girl's coming of age.
Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow, James Sturm
This is not actually a biography of Satchel Paige. I had assumed it was, based on the title, but nope. Instead, it is a graphic novel about what Satchel Paige meant to black people in the Jim Crow south as told through the eyes of one man and his son.
Our narrator (whose name is probably Emmett, though it's never outright given) starts out telling us about the time he played baseball against Paige, who, by the way, is arguably the greatest pitcher of all time. Narrator beat Paige, but blew out his knee in the doing. Fast forward several years. We see our narrator's present-day life working as a sharecropper, complete with incredibly awful treatment for himself and his son and the people around him by the white landlords. Then Satchel Paige comes into his life again in an exhibition match. It's tense and taut and really, surprisingly hopeful in tone for a book that deals so deeply with Jim Crow.
The art's great and the story really compelling. I'm only docking it a star for some weird pacing issues. Definitely recommended.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 5--fascists will froth at the mouth. It's about an extraordinary black man giving hope and strength to black people everywhere. Read it and make them weep.
A Game of Swallows: To Die, To Leave, To Return, Zeina Abirached
This is, essentially, the story of a single night in Zeina Abirached's life.
Abirached was born in Lebanon during a civil war about which I (shamefully) know nothing, and must learn about. So for her and her little brother, that's just life, it's just normal. One night, her parents don't return from a visit to her grandmother, and one by one their neighbors drift down to look after the children and take care of them.
The Abiracheds' apartment is actually the safest place in the house, which may be part of it, but it seemed to me that the neighbors were far more interested in looking after these children and waiting out the night in company. The whole story is about finding comfort in each other, about being strong for each other, and about being together when things are darkest. Abirached's storytelling is very well done, and the art is beautiful, plus there's nothing very graphic in it. Definitely recommended.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 5--fascists will froth at the mouth. No white people, vehemently anti-war, all of these brown people are wonderful and amazing, and a young girl is at the center of the story.
Flying Couch, Amy Kurzweil
This is Amy Kurzweil's memoir of growing up as a Jewish woman, interwoven with the lives of her mother and her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. Her grandmother, by the way, is one of the most interesting women I've seen in recent works. Kurzweil uses her grandmother's actual oral testimony to write her segments of the books, and what I believe is an interview with her mother to write those segments. We actually don't get a lot of her mother, and I would have liked to see that? That said, it's a really compelling memoir, both the sections about her grandmother and the ones about Kurzweil trying to reclaim her Jewish identity through the help of books (which I strongly identified with; when I began to identify as first biromantic and then a lesbian, I did a LOT of reading by lesbian authors).
Basically, if you enjoyed Alison Bechdel, you'll enjoy this. Even the artwork is similar, though Kurzweil's is a little sketchier. I'd recommend it for certain.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 5--fascists will froth at the mouth. Women! Jewish women! Explicit portrayal of the Holocaust! Condemnation of Nazis! It's great.
This entry is crossposted at http://bookblather.dreamwidth.org/420802.html. Please comment over there if possible.
Smile, Raina Telgemeier
I'm gonna start this review out with a disclaimer. If you are easily freaked out by dentists or the thought of teeth being problematic, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. I've had some really gnarly nightmares about my teeth thanks to this book. Please be careful.
That said. Smile is an autobiography of Telgemeier's preteen years after she tripped and knocked out her two front teeth. She goes back and forth between the dentist and the orthodontist, deals with braces and headgear and retainers and surgeries, and has to deal with middle school on top of that, which is really just not fair. Backstabbing friends and crushes and earthquakes round out the book.
Now, it's a good book. But I cannot emphasize enough that if you have issues with teeth, you should not read this book. Telgemeier gets up close and personal with the consequences of her teeth issues, and the drawings can get quite explicit. However, if you can handle it, it's a great coming-of-age story with nice throughlines and good art. Recommended with that one caveat.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 3--fascists have problems. It's a preteen girl's coming of age.
Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow, James Sturm
This is not actually a biography of Satchel Paige. I had assumed it was, based on the title, but nope. Instead, it is a graphic novel about what Satchel Paige meant to black people in the Jim Crow south as told through the eyes of one man and his son.
Our narrator (whose name is probably Emmett, though it's never outright given) starts out telling us about the time he played baseball against Paige, who, by the way, is arguably the greatest pitcher of all time. Narrator beat Paige, but blew out his knee in the doing. Fast forward several years. We see our narrator's present-day life working as a sharecropper, complete with incredibly awful treatment for himself and his son and the people around him by the white landlords. Then Satchel Paige comes into his life again in an exhibition match. It's tense and taut and really, surprisingly hopeful in tone for a book that deals so deeply with Jim Crow.
The art's great and the story really compelling. I'm only docking it a star for some weird pacing issues. Definitely recommended.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 5--fascists will froth at the mouth. It's about an extraordinary black man giving hope and strength to black people everywhere. Read it and make them weep.
A Game of Swallows: To Die, To Leave, To Return, Zeina Abirached
This is, essentially, the story of a single night in Zeina Abirached's life.
Abirached was born in Lebanon during a civil war about which I (shamefully) know nothing, and must learn about. So for her and her little brother, that's just life, it's just normal. One night, her parents don't return from a visit to her grandmother, and one by one their neighbors drift down to look after the children and take care of them.
The Abiracheds' apartment is actually the safest place in the house, which may be part of it, but it seemed to me that the neighbors were far more interested in looking after these children and waiting out the night in company. The whole story is about finding comfort in each other, about being strong for each other, and about being together when things are darkest. Abirached's storytelling is very well done, and the art is beautiful, plus there's nothing very graphic in it. Definitely recommended.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 5--fascists will froth at the mouth. No white people, vehemently anti-war, all of these brown people are wonderful and amazing, and a young girl is at the center of the story.
Flying Couch, Amy Kurzweil
This is Amy Kurzweil's memoir of growing up as a Jewish woman, interwoven with the lives of her mother and her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. Her grandmother, by the way, is one of the most interesting women I've seen in recent works. Kurzweil uses her grandmother's actual oral testimony to write her segments of the books, and what I believe is an interview with her mother to write those segments. We actually don't get a lot of her mother, and I would have liked to see that? That said, it's a really compelling memoir, both the sections about her grandmother and the ones about Kurzweil trying to reclaim her Jewish identity through the help of books (which I strongly identified with; when I began to identify as first biromantic and then a lesbian, I did a LOT of reading by lesbian authors).
Basically, if you enjoyed Alison Bechdel, you'll enjoy this. Even the artwork is similar, though Kurzweil's is a little sketchier. I'd recommend it for certain.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 5--fascists will froth at the mouth. Women! Jewish women! Explicit portrayal of the Holocaust! Condemnation of Nazis! It's great.
This entry is crossposted at http://bookblather.dreamwidth.org/420802.html. Please comment over there if possible.