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4.4 AVERAGE
4.4 AVERAGE
Give the sea a kiss for me.
This lovely graphic novel follows Clémence after she decides to break her grandmother out of her nursing home and take her on a road trip. Her grandmother has dementia and often forgets who Clémence is or where they're going, but Clémence is patient and resilient and the pair are led on a wild road trip that gets them in all kinds of trouble! I really love the relationship between Clémence and her grandmother. The topics covered in this are hard, but it's done with comedic lightness and joy, focusing on the duo and their love for each other. Really, really recommend.
Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.
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This lovely graphic novel follows Clémence after she decides to break her grandmother out of her nursing home and take her on a road trip. Her grandmother has dementia and often forgets who Clémence is or where they're going, but Clémence is patient and resilient and the pair are led on a wild road trip that gets them in all kinds of trouble! I really love the relationship between Clémence and her grandmother. The topics covered in this are hard, but it's done with comedic lightness and joy, focusing on the duo and their love for each other. Really, really recommend.
Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.
☆ Blog | Twitter ☆
TW: Nudity, swearing, death, Alzheimers
*****SPOILERS*****
About the book: When Clémence, a student and actress struggling with personal issues, sees how miserable her grandmother is in her nursing home, she decides to break her out and take her on a road trip to the coast so she can see her childhood home one last time. But traveling with a senior with Alzheimer’s Disease comes with a fair amount of challenges, and the journey is fraught with highs, lows, and near misses. Still, it’s a chance for the two women to reconnect, with each other and with themselves, and it’s a chance for Clémence to give Grammy the gift of one last thrilling and joyful experience.
Release Date: January 15th, 2021
Genre: Graphic Novel/Art
Rating:
*****SPOILERS*****
About the book: When Clémence, a student and actress struggling with personal issues, sees how miserable her grandmother is in her nursing home, she decides to break her out and take her on a road trip to the coast so she can see her childhood home one last time. But traveling with a senior with Alzheimer’s Disease comes with a fair amount of challenges, and the journey is fraught with highs, lows, and near misses. Still, it’s a chance for the two women to reconnect, with each other and with themselves, and it’s a chance for Clémence to give Grammy the gift of one last thrilling and joyful experience.
Release Date: January 15th, 2021
Genre: Graphic Novel/Art
Rating:
dark
emotional
medium-paced
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
"Forget Me Not" was simply beautiful.
In this newly translated comic, Alix Garin gives us the story of Clémence, her mother, and her grandmother. Granny lives in a home and, as we begin, we can see she doesn't like it. She keeps trying to escape, convinced she's a young woman again who lives with her parents and needs to get back to them before they start worrying. And this is when we realize Granny's memory is going, and it's breaking Clémence and her mother's heart.
Horrified at the idea of medicating Granny to keep her docile and prevent dangerous escape attempts, Clémence steals her away for one final adventure: a long drive to her grandmother's family home. But it's not the fun road-trip Clémence imagined. And Granny's memory is getting worse, to the point where she teeters between recognition and total fear at the young woman she doesn't recognize (or the old woman she sees staring back at her in the mirror).
Gorgeous and sad and emotionally complex, "Forget Me Not" explores how life and relationships inform each other, and how time can bring clarity or confusion to how much we love those around us. It's also, much to my delight, a story about parents and children, and how--deep down--we're always the person we used to be, and the love we had will always be there.
Recommended if you like stories about family, aging, and the rediscovery of love between a mother and a daughter.
Thank you to Europe Comics and Netgalley for sending me a free e-ARC of this comic in exchange for an honest review.
In this newly translated comic, Alix Garin gives us the story of Clémence, her mother, and her grandmother. Granny lives in a home and, as we begin, we can see she doesn't like it. She keeps trying to escape, convinced she's a young woman again who lives with her parents and needs to get back to them before they start worrying. And this is when we realize Granny's memory is going, and it's breaking Clémence and her mother's heart.
Horrified at the idea of medicating Granny to keep her docile and prevent dangerous escape attempts, Clémence steals her away for one final adventure: a long drive to her grandmother's family home. But it's not the fun road-trip Clémence imagined. And Granny's memory is getting worse, to the point where she teeters between recognition and total fear at the young woman she doesn't recognize (or the old woman she sees staring back at her in the mirror).
Gorgeous and sad and emotionally complex, "Forget Me Not" explores how life and relationships inform each other, and how time can bring clarity or confusion to how much we love those around us. It's also, much to my delight, a story about parents and children, and how--deep down--we're always the person we used to be, and the love we had will always be there.
Recommended if you like stories about family, aging, and the rediscovery of love between a mother and a daughter.
Thank you to Europe Comics and Netgalley for sending me a free e-ARC of this comic in exchange for an honest review.
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Super Short Summary
Clémence essentially kidnaps her grandmother from the nursing home behind her mother’s back and takes a road rip back to Grammy’s childhood home, hoping it will help revive her decaying memory.
When I first picked this graphic novel up (thanks NetGalley, by the way), I was not expecting it to be so deep. I was expecting a lighthearted, maybe humorous, story about a young woman kidnapping her grandmother and searching for something better.
Sure, I was expecting some self-discovery, but this… wow.
Storytelling & Artwork
Both of these stood out to me. I love graphic novels for lots of reasons, but the artwork is the primary reason I read them. Alix Garin’s art style is beautiful, mesmerizing, and elicits emotion. Add the dynamic storytelling and you have a pure masterpiece.
To give you an idea of the story without spoilers, the timeline jumps back and forth between the road rip / kidnapping and a police station interrogation room. Clémence is being questioned about the events of the road trip, dropping gentle plot-bombs for us readers to unravel.
I cried.
I’m not an easy book-crier, especially when it comes to graphic novels. After connecting the spoiler-y dots, I had to set down my phone and have a good cry. Luckily, I was already in the bath tub.
The Spoiler-y Dots
I usually don’t include spoilers in my book reviews, but I feel like I have to for this one. If you’ve read it, please proceed. If you haven’t, skip this section and get yourself a copy of this heart-wrenching book!
At the end of this book, Grammy finally gets to see her childhood home and then… I think she dies, which is why Clémence is in the interrogation room to the begin with. I had to re-read that section probably five times before believing that Grammy died. However, this ending is beautiful. Grammy did say that she would rather die than to go back to the nursing home… and she died in her childhood home, where she probably felt the most peace possible.
If this is true and I’m understanding this correctly, this also means that Clémence should’ve been much more distraught than she was. I mean, I would’ve been bawling my eyes out if I had the relationship with Grammy that she did and witnessed what she did. Where was the emotion?
I thought about this and maybe Garin decided not to include that emotion in the artwork because of the possible spoilers, but it would’ve made me more eager to finish the book. I would’ve wanted to know what brought out the intensity in Clémence. I don’t know, just my opinion.
A Few Things You Should Know
Even though Forget Me Not is a powerful story of love and self-discovery, it does have some very adult themes. The artwork includes nudity, but it’s done tastefully and meaningfully.
Forget Me Not also has some pretty intense trigger warnings for Alzheimer’s and various types of domestic abuse. Tread carefully and practice self-care.
Recommended for…
Lovers of graphic novels that have strong emotional meaning. This is not a frilly romance or a worldbuilding fantasy. This is a real graphic novel that depicts the relationship between a granddaughter and her grandmother and the desperate yearning of wanting to help someone with Alzheimer’s, but not knowing how to do it.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I'm really not sure I was prepared for how much this would smack emotionally. A very moving portrait of three generations of women and their relationships with one another.
The graphic novel begins as Clémence goes to visit her Grandmother in the care home where she is living. She's unhappy with the way her Grandmother is being cared for and she realises how deeply unhappy she is, and so she decides to break her free from the home and take her to her childhood home that she's been trying to escape the care home to visit. I should say that Clémence's Grandmother has quite advanced Alzheimer's, and so flitters in and out of time periods and does spend quite a lot of the graphic novel believing that she is a young girl returning to her worried parent's home.
What follows is a road trip full of incident - how else to describe it? - and an emotional rollercoaster between Grandmother and Grandchild. At times deeply funny, but also just devastating. It hits close to home as my own Grandmother has a form of Dementia and I connected with some of the feelings of joy at learning so much about her past, and deep sadness that her consciousness of today is slipping.
I found the short clip where Clémence attempts to strangle her Grandmother really upsetting, and honestly, I didn't really understand it. It didn't make sense to me in terms of their relationship and her desire to care for her Grandmother. I also found it distressing to see Clémence constantly correct her Grandmother and bring her back to "reality". It's best to sit with people with Dementia in whatever place they are in as correcting them can cause extreme emotional distress and even anger - something which was then shown in the comic.
Some of the most emotionally affecting passages were those where Clémence and her Grandmother revisit old memories of Clémence's Grandfather and Clémence's mother, and the scenes in the bathtub and by the sea were both deeply moving.
Forget Me Not also captures the silence between generations of women, between family, and how in some ways Dementia allows you to get to know somebody in a different way, or at a different time in their life, and how caring for somebody with Dementia can bring you closer to them.
For example, in the bathtub when Clémence thinks "What about her? What happened to her?" - Clémence is reflecting on all that she doesn't know about her Grandmother, thinking about their shared experiences as women, and seeing her Grandmother in a new and unfamiliar light. There is a lot of this in the comic and it's something that I personally recognised based on my own experiences.
I also thought it was very clever to have the flipping back and forth to the police station scenes - which were unexpected and added a bit of intrigue as to how they wound up there.
I loved Alix Garin's use of imagery and how sometimes there were these spreads without any speech or text, many of which I found the most affecting.
I'm really impressed by this graphic novel and would definitely recommend it! Just be aware that it packs an emotional punch.
The graphic novel begins as Clémence goes to visit her Grandmother in the care home where she is living. She's unhappy with the way her Grandmother is being cared for and she realises how deeply unhappy she is, and so she decides to break her free from the home and take her to her childhood home that she's been trying to escape the care home to visit. I should say that Clémence's Grandmother has quite advanced Alzheimer's, and so flitters in and out of time periods and does spend quite a lot of the graphic novel believing that she is a young girl returning to her worried parent's home.
What follows is a road trip full of incident - how else to describe it? - and an emotional rollercoaster between Grandmother and Grandchild. At times deeply funny, but also just devastating. It hits close to home as my own Grandmother has a form of Dementia and I connected with some of the feelings of joy at learning so much about her past, and deep sadness that her consciousness of today is slipping.
I found the short clip where Clémence attempts to strangle her Grandmother really upsetting, and honestly, I didn't really understand it. It didn't make sense to me in terms of their relationship and her desire to care for her Grandmother. I also found it distressing to see Clémence constantly correct her Grandmother and bring her back to "reality". It's best to sit with people with Dementia in whatever place they are in as correcting them can cause extreme emotional distress and even anger - something which was then shown in the comic.
Some of the most emotionally affecting passages were those where Clémence and her Grandmother revisit old memories of Clémence's Grandfather and Clémence's mother, and the scenes in the bathtub and by the sea were both deeply moving.
Forget Me Not also captures the silence between generations of women, between family, and how in some ways Dementia allows you to get to know somebody in a different way, or at a different time in their life, and how caring for somebody with Dementia can bring you closer to them.
For example, in the bathtub when Clémence thinks "What about her? What happened to her?" - Clémence is reflecting on all that she doesn't know about her Grandmother, thinking about their shared experiences as women, and seeing her Grandmother in a new and unfamiliar light. There is a lot of this in the comic and it's something that I personally recognised based on my own experiences.
I also thought it was very clever to have the flipping back and forth to the police station scenes - which were unexpected and added a bit of intrigue as to how they wound up there.
I loved Alix Garin's use of imagery and how sometimes there were these spreads without any speech or text, many of which I found the most affecting.
I'm really impressed by this graphic novel and would definitely recommend it! Just be aware that it packs an emotional punch.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Death of parent
CWs: domestic abuse, violence, blood, abuse and neglect of elderly, homophobia, death of a parent/loved one, sexual content.
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
dark
emotional
inspiring
lighthearted
sad
fast-paced
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
If you want to see a visual and emotional representation of what Alzheimer's does to a person, this is the book to read.
Clémence is a young student who is dealing with her personal issues as well as the fact that her beloved grandmother's Alzheimer's seems to be worsening. To make her grandma happy one last time, Clémence décidés to take her on a road trip to the coast, to her childhood home. But a roadtrip with an Alzheimer's sufferer isn't easy. Add to this the complication that Clémence doesn't take permission from the nursing home before embarking on the journey with their patient. The journey shows an entire range of emotions and ultimately proves that the bond between family is stronger than any other.
The story is written in a gripping and intense manner. You will feel the tug at your heartstrings at the connection between Clémence and her grandma. One line that the grandmother says really stuck in my heart: "Too late arrives sooner than we think." How true is that!
The script of this graphic novel goes by very quickly. Many pages contain only sketches without any dialogues. So you don't even realise when the 224 pages are done. But I'm not really sure how I feel about the ending of the story. That turn of events was too disturbing for my liking, though it did make sense within the context of the story.
The illustrations are quite simplistic and keep your focus on the plot and feelings rather than being distractions. Some text in the background illustrations of the English version were still in French. It would be better to translate even those to English.
Some of the graphic panels contain complete nudity. (Mentioning this point just in case some readers are particular about nudity in graphic novels. Nothing sexual though.)
Thank you, NetGalley and Europe Comics, for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Clémence is a young student who is dealing with her personal issues as well as the fact that her beloved grandmother's Alzheimer's seems to be worsening. To make her grandma happy one last time, Clémence décidés to take her on a road trip to the coast, to her childhood home. But a roadtrip with an Alzheimer's sufferer isn't easy. Add to this the complication that Clémence doesn't take permission from the nursing home before embarking on the journey with their patient. The journey shows an entire range of emotions and ultimately proves that the bond between family is stronger than any other.
The story is written in a gripping and intense manner. You will feel the tug at your heartstrings at the connection between Clémence and her grandma. One line that the grandmother says really stuck in my heart: "Too late arrives sooner than we think." How true is that!
The script of this graphic novel goes by very quickly. Many pages contain only sketches without any dialogues. So you don't even realise when the 224 pages are done. But I'm not really sure how I feel about the ending of the story. That turn of events was too disturbing for my liking, though it did make sense within the context of the story.
The illustrations are quite simplistic and keep your focus on the plot and feelings rather than being distractions. Some text in the background illustrations of the English version were still in French. It would be better to translate even those to English.
Some of the graphic panels contain complete nudity. (Mentioning this point just in case some readers are particular about nudity in graphic novels. Nothing sexual though.)
Thank you, NetGalley and Europe Comics, for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Forget Me Not was my first NetGalley read - thanks Netgalley! I've always been interested in this site but I'm a bit of a slow reader so I worried about falling behind or over committing myself but then I thought - what about graphic novels? Graphic novels are often really quick reads but that doesn't mean that they can't deliver a lot in a small package. This book delivered a lot.
Clemence kidnaps her grammy from the nursing home - where grammy is miserable - and the two of them go on an adventure. But, the dementia is setting so there is both rollicking joy and immense sadness in this journey.
I lost my grandma two years ago and this book flooded me with memories. We lost her to the dementia before we lost her life but she was a fierce, fiery woman who I'll never forget. This book made me feel that grief again but it also reminded me that even in old age, even through illness, and memory loss, there is still joy to be found and lives to connect to and change. I know my grandma changed my life.
The book took a few unnecessary tangents, in my opinion, particularly when it covered some parts of the main character's love life. It felt tangential and not important to the story - but that is my small complaint for an otherwise beautiful read!
Clemence kidnaps her grammy from the nursing home - where grammy is miserable - and the two of them go on an adventure. But, the dementia is setting so there is both rollicking joy and immense sadness in this journey.
I lost my grandma two years ago and this book flooded me with memories. We lost her to the dementia before we lost her life but she was a fierce, fiery woman who I'll never forget. This book made me feel that grief again but it also reminded me that even in old age, even through illness, and memory loss, there is still joy to be found and lives to connect to and change. I know my grandma changed my life.
The book took a few unnecessary tangents, in my opinion, particularly when it covered some parts of the main character's love life. It felt tangential and not important to the story - but that is my small complaint for an otherwise beautiful read!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Sexual content, Forced institutionalization, Dementia, Grief