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A review by otterno11
The Infinite Wait and Other Stories by Julia Wertz
5.0
I have really enjoyed the work of cartoonist Julia Wertz online and in print, and having seen some of these comics posted on her blog, I was looking forward to seeing them in their entirety in “The Infinite Wait and Other Stories.” This is, I feel, her strongest work yet. Wertz’s self deprecating, detail orientated reflections on 20 something life is one of the best and most accurate depictions I have seen. I love her meticulous maps of her various cramped apartments, and I’ve not found many other comics that can express amusing anecdotes of daily life so well, or one so adept at funny insults!
Discussing, in unsparing and hilarious detail, her various employments over the years, her struggle with the chronic disease Lupus, and the influence her local public library had on her life, Wertz shows how memoir comics can elevate the human condition. Or something. Really, it’s just a lot of fun, even as she writes on the more difficult aspects of her life. As someone born in the same year, sharing a certain bookish mentality, anti-social tendencies, and a close relationship with my sibling, there was a lot here that really resonated with me, but Wertz’s sarcastic and acerbic wit expresses it far better than I could.
It is the last story, “A Strange and Curious Place,” that enjoyed most strongly; as a kid who loved visits to the library, who got most of my books through the annual booksale, and who dreamed of having a book on the shelf there someday, this was evocative stuff. Wertz’ reflection the place the library had on her life, and now that I find myself working in a public library (even occasionally at my own, old hometown library), is great publicity for the place and would recommend it to any librarian, library worker, or library patron!
Discussing, in unsparing and hilarious detail, her various employments over the years, her struggle with the chronic disease Lupus, and the influence her local public library had on her life, Wertz shows how memoir comics can elevate the human condition. Or something. Really, it’s just a lot of fun, even as she writes on the more difficult aspects of her life. As someone born in the same year, sharing a certain bookish mentality, anti-social tendencies, and a close relationship with my sibling, there was a lot here that really resonated with me, but Wertz’s sarcastic and acerbic wit expresses it far better than I could.
It is the last story, “A Strange and Curious Place,” that enjoyed most strongly; as a kid who loved visits to the library, who got most of my books through the annual booksale, and who dreamed of having a book on the shelf there someday, this was evocative stuff. Wertz’ reflection the place the library had on her life, and now that I find myself working in a public library (even occasionally at my own, old hometown library), is great publicity for the place and would recommend it to any librarian, library worker, or library patron!