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bookishjesse's review
3.0
I enjoyed this book until the last section. I found it jarring that we go through so much procrastination only to have a completed thesis all of a sudden within a few years. I am interested in the change and what effect teaching had on the thesis writing process.
thecommonswings's review
4.0
A nicely judged satire/ work of obvious catharsis about the state of academia. It nicely avoids cliches - surely because of the autobiographical elements as much as Rivière being too clever to fall into those traps - and instead nicely parallels the heroine’s work on Kafka with her predicament without ever forcing it. Her art is very much of the Allie Brosh kinetic school with scant regard for conventional cartooning (although I detect some of the influence of Sempé here) when she could instead be showing the drama of movement and physicality. She obviously has good artistic skills though because the fluid art is always grounded in realism. A minor classic
althearoselibrarylady's review
4.0
Oddly enough when I finished this book and opened the Goodreads app to add it, the initial quote on the Goodreads loading page was the one from Kafka mentioned in this book! So strange!
Anyway, this is an adorable graphic novel and I would recommend it to anyone going through a Phd program-or even grad school.
Anyway, this is an adorable graphic novel and I would recommend it to anyone going through a Phd program-or even grad school.
redrocketpanda's review
3.0
I stumbled across Notes on a Thesis a few years ago at some point during my undergraduate and loved the look of it - a graphic novel about academia sounded perfect, especially one that seemingly dealt with the stress of academia in a light-hearted way. So, there seemed no better time to read it than a couple of months into the start of my PhD after my partner bought me a hardcover for for Christmas.
Sadly though, Notes on a Thesis really missed the mark for me. I'm not sure if a large element of this is down to differences in cultural humor (a British reader reading a translated French graphic novel) but I really didn't enjoy the humor of this book - a lot of it I didn't find funny and found the protagonist entirely insufferable; very self-involved, always complaining, very little redeeming qualities.
The pacing of the book was also off-putting with lots devoted to the first two years, less to the following years, and then almost nothing to the final year of her PhD. The final section was very rushed and ended on a low note. To be honest, I found the entire thing really depressing and not something I would recommend people doing their PhD to read, especially those early in their journey.
Sadly though, Notes on a Thesis really missed the mark for me. I'm not sure if a large element of this is down to differences in cultural humor (a British reader reading a translated French graphic novel) but I really didn't enjoy the humor of this book - a lot of it I didn't find funny and found the protagonist entirely insufferable; very self-involved, always complaining, very little redeeming qualities.
The pacing of the book was also off-putting with lots devoted to the first two years, less to the following years, and then almost nothing to the final year of her PhD. The final section was very rushed and ended on a low note. To be honest, I found the entire thing really depressing and not something I would recommend people doing their PhD to read, especially those early in their journey.
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