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4.23 AVERAGE
4.23 AVERAGE
You ever read something that hits just a little too close?
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
fast-paced
I've been hearing a lot of good things about Zoe Thorogood over the years. The phrase "the future of comics" comes up a lot when her name is mentioned.
Here, we have her first autobiographical comic. It's largely a meta narrative about her time creating the comic. But, more than that, it's about her struggles with suicidal depression. Based in the cover, which shows her dancing around her kitchen, I was expecting a fun story about being a creative person in their 20s. Boy, was I wrong. About the fun part, anyway.
Not fun, maybe, but this was fantastic. Thorogood uses her significant art chops to create one of the best depictions of depression I've seen. There are a few "characters" that represent aspects of Zoe's mental illness. And to show her disconnection from others, everyone else is an anthropomorphized talking animal.
The worst of my own struggles with depression are, thankfully, very small in the rearview mirror. At least for now. But this book brought some memories right back to the surface. It was a good thing. When things have been good long enough, it's easy to forget how bad they can get.
This is a book about a creative person in their 20s. It's not fun. But she uses her creativity to channel her bad feelings. And survive.
Highly recommended for anyone who has dealt with serious depression, or loves someone who does.
Available free on Hoopla, if your library has it.
I empathize with the author/artist’s struggle with clinical depression, and I think the art is astonishing, especially when Thorogood gets whacky with the multimedia. But at the beginning of the book, she promises to follow a plot. Maybe that was sarcasm. But for the rest of this book, I was looking for said plot. I wish she’d just have let it be slice of life. I think I would have enjoyed it more if my eyes weren’t constantly glued to a road map that perhaps never existed.
That said, I commend this book for helping a lot of people feel less alone. It didn’t touch me in a profound way. But that’s ok. I find my solace in other literature. I’m still so thrilled for those who have found it here.
That said, I commend this book for helping a lot of people feel less alone. It didn’t touch me in a profound way. But that’s ok. I find my solace in other literature. I’m still so thrilled for those who have found it here.
reflective
i really loved the style and creativity in this and the different figures
The art style, colors, and formatting were extremely cool, but I was underwhelmed with the story. It was disjointed and subsequently hard to follow at several points. Also, Zoe is consistently awful to her only friend, and it’s not cute or enjoyable to read about. Anything relatable was overshadowed by that imo.
I try to for the most part to avoid listing graphic novels and comics in any form on Goodreads. Not because I don’t consider them an equal medium. Quite frankly I primarily read comics and consider them my favorite art-form but I consume them at such a high rate that to properly track them would destroy my Goodreads tracking and challenge so I mostly just rate them for the creators sake and leave it at that. Sometimes though a book is so exceptional that it bypasses that.
Thorogood’s auto-bio is a devastatingly good portrayal of living with clinical depression and serious self-worth. It’s gorgeously drawn and sarcastic and funny and hopeful and blisteringly sad. There’s a running bit in the book about the bullshit of making relatable comics but there’s also a bit about the connectivity and healing of people in sharing experiences and pain, in ownership and expression of loneliness. “It’s lonely at the center of the earth, but I no longer want to live here”. It’s a beautiful thing to be seen. It’s a painful thing to be called out for your selfishness. It’s a hopeful thing to experience something so ultimately hopeful.
Thorogood’s auto-bio is a devastatingly good portrayal of living with clinical depression and serious self-worth. It’s gorgeously drawn and sarcastic and funny and hopeful and blisteringly sad. There’s a running bit in the book about the bullshit of making relatable comics but there’s also a bit about the connectivity and healing of people in sharing experiences and pain, in ownership and expression of loneliness. “It’s lonely at the center of the earth, but I no longer want to live here”. It’s a beautiful thing to be seen. It’s a painful thing to be called out for your selfishness. It’s a hopeful thing to experience something so ultimately hopeful.
Okay well the art in this is incredible and all over the place, I very much enjoyed it. I think the book could have benefitted from a slightly more solid storyline, but there's a lot of fourth wall breaking and it even addresses that, so... forgivable? I do like a book that is self-aware.
Content-wise this is not much different from other self-referential graphic memoirs, dealing with the usual theme of the artist not feeling confident or accomplished even though they've got published works and stuff, and then ultimately making peace with that. But this one was very forward with the author's constant suicide ideation, giving appropriate trigger warnings at the beginning as well as hoping that the readers can find solidarity and comfort in her honesty and humor surrounding that topic.
Content-wise this is not much different from other self-referential graphic memoirs, dealing with the usual theme of the artist not feeling confident or accomplished even though they've got published works and stuff, and then ultimately making peace with that. But this one was very forward with the author's constant suicide ideation, giving appropriate trigger warnings at the beginning as well as hoping that the readers can find solidarity and comfort in her honesty and humor surrounding that topic.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt
Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, Grief
Minor: Drug use, Suicide, Vomit