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3.26 AVERAGE
3.26 AVERAGE
Please note, my feelings about this book are out of step with the critical and popular consensus. First, the image on the cover (which appears in the narrative) isn't possible. There's no spot inside Detroit Metro airport that yields a view of the Detroit skyline, and to get this particular arrangement of buildings, one has to be across the river in Windsor. Minor complaint? Yeah, maybe, but given that the book is so sincerely grounded in documentary and a strong sense of place - particularly abandoned places - with architecturally precise renderings of settlements and post-human ruins, taking poetic license for creative geography on the cover feels a violation. There's a cool emotional distancing throughout the book that's emphasized by the precise linework that unfortunately strays toward the clipart-esque. The narrator is frequently emotionally detached, from people, from herself, from the abandoned places she documents. There are some stirring epiphanies about humanity's relationship with its own creations as it seeks an illusory sense of permanence in the world in the final pages that are haiku-like in their profundity. To get there, though, takes patience with some cold, emotionally opaque memoir that is not my cup of tea.
If this autobiographical graphic essay collection doesn't quite coalesce, it is still a luminous peek into a highly intelligent and artistic young mind concerned with death from a few angles, including the inheritance of genetic fate, and if/how we are meant to honor historical ruins. Radtke's illustrations are really impressive.
A haunting, moving ode to the empty, or emptied spaces of America. This book caught me at a time when I was mulling on decay, death and the future too, so it has particular resonance there.
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Yikes ... hard to rate this one. At times beautiful, but mostly obsessed with its own intelligence and loneliness. I became even more uncomfortable with this book after reading the highest ranked review on Goodreads by the mother of the man whose death Radtke becomes obsessed with.
I know that enjoying a style of art is subjective, and someone else might enjoy Radtke's illustrations, but I could not. The entire time I was reading it, I kept thinking, "This looks like instruction manual art." It specifically reminded of a metal detecting manual that came with my friend's Metal Detector Jr. I did not like it, which is a big problem in a graphic memoir.
However, if the narrative is still excellent, not loving the art doesn't ruin the book for me. At first, I was pulled in by the heart defect storyline, but the storytelling jumps all over the place with not as much cohesion as I'd like. Things are described as "empty," which I took to mean she felt empty. You know what's more boring than having ennui? Reading someone else's ennui.
There were parts of interesting accounts in the book and I especially liked the ending sequence about impermanence, but the book taken as a whole wasn't enough.
However, if the narrative is still excellent, not loving the art doesn't ruin the book for me. At first, I was pulled in by the heart defect storyline
Spoiler
(which I felt wasn't satisfactorily explored - does she have the gene or not??)There were parts of interesting accounts in the book and I especially liked the ending sequence about impermanence, but the book taken as a whole wasn't enough.
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Wonderful mature visuals, memorable storyline and imagery, travel imagery across US and Europe, historical fiction with some of the most sad abandon monuments of life in a way to reflect on and cope with personal deep loss that we all go through at some point in our lives. This book is a grieving experience done with a light touch that travels from Chicago to Gary to Southwest US, to Europe. The line art style is memorable while capturing emotions of the moment throughout.
I had completely forgotten that I attended a panel at NonfictioNOW in 2015 where Kristen Radtke addressed "the essay as ruin" -- a thought-provoking session where she talked about this book in progress. I enjoyed her drawing style as well as her words in this one, and especially appreciated the intertwining of coming-of-age questioning, looking at a culture that's fascinated with ruins (and the history of the culture and the ruins), and the question of how a worrisome health condition plays into it all. Ultimately, it meandered a little more than I would have chosen, but still it's thoughtful.
visually compelling, but when reading, I kept asking myself "what's the purpose of this story?" and wasn't truly able to answer this
This is a graphic memoir about experiencing grief and trying to find meaning in lost things.