A review by naughty_librarian
The Tenderness of Stones by Marion Fayolle

4.0

This is a brutal graphic novel memoir that hits close to home for me: my parents are disabled and my parents-in-law both recently passed away. Having to translate for someone reminds me of what I go through with my dad, who is hearing impaired, and also having to wait on someone helpless, like my physically disabled mom, which somehow turns them into a cruel tyrant... It must be a defense mechanism for people who lose most of their independence... And the suffering and waiting for death... Sitting in hospice with my mother-in-law, wishing it would just be over already... The dragging around of oxygen that my father-in-law was chained to... The public way life feels as the medical personnel descend, the imposition of extended family that wants to grieve too... So personal, and so true. I don't think I was quite ready to read this, and therefore my rating may be inaccurate. Sidenote: I wish I could read it in its original French.