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A review by helpfulsnowman
Rosalie Lightning: A Graphic Memoir by Tom Hart
This memoir of suddenly losing a kid is hard to rate. It doesn’t feel good to give it stars or not stars because it’s hard to escape the idea that the experience and the expression are intertwined.
So I’ll just talk about it a little.
The book wasn’t the best read. It’s a little disjointed and feels a little like a list of things the characters did.
Which completely makes sense and is a good expression of what’s so weird and hard and sad about something like this. When you go through something awful, you notice how weird it is that you do stuff like laundry, and how weird it is that you still have to do laundry even though you’re going through this thing.
It feels like the relentlessness of life should stop at least for a little bit, but it doesn’t.
So this book feels like an honest and accurate depiction of that, how chaotic and weird it is to grieve and still be a person who lives in real life.
And in that way, it’s a success.
But I think for me, the reading of it was probably not the equal of the creation of it. I think the reader experience is that of someone watching this guy go through some shit, and you’re sort of repulsed and scared by how deep the grief goes and by how helpless you are to do anything.
What it ends up feeling like, as a reader, is you’re with this guy who’s in the thick of some heavy shit. And he’s helping you shovel snow in your driveway, and while you’re present for him, you’re also noticing that his shoveling ain’t so hot in this moment. Of course you’re not going to say anything, but if you look at it objectively, just as shoveling, you’re not thrilled with the job.
So I’ll just talk about it a little.
The book wasn’t the best read. It’s a little disjointed and feels a little like a list of things the characters did.
Which completely makes sense and is a good expression of what’s so weird and hard and sad about something like this. When you go through something awful, you notice how weird it is that you do stuff like laundry, and how weird it is that you still have to do laundry even though you’re going through this thing.
It feels like the relentlessness of life should stop at least for a little bit, but it doesn’t.
So this book feels like an honest and accurate depiction of that, how chaotic and weird it is to grieve and still be a person who lives in real life.
And in that way, it’s a success.
But I think for me, the reading of it was probably not the equal of the creation of it. I think the reader experience is that of someone watching this guy go through some shit, and you’re sort of repulsed and scared by how deep the grief goes and by how helpless you are to do anything.
What it ends up feeling like, as a reader, is you’re with this guy who’s in the thick of some heavy shit. And he’s helping you shovel snow in your driveway, and while you’re present for him, you’re also noticing that his shoveling ain’t so hot in this moment. Of course you’re not going to say anything, but if you look at it objectively, just as shoveling, you’re not thrilled with the job.