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Invisible Differences

Marguerite is a 27-year-old French woman who discovers she has Aspergers (now called Autism Spectrum Disorder) as an adult, and this new knowledge transforms her life.

This memoir-of-sorts is based on author Julie Dachez’s life, as she recounts her experiences through the eyes of Marguerite, in which she struggles at work and has few friends. A two-year relationship is faltering, as her reclusiveness and odd habits prevent her from socializing and engaging in activities her boyfriend would like to participate in. She eventually gets an official diagnosis through an autism center, and with the new knowledge makes changes in her personal life.

I enjoyed how color was utilized in the story, for the narrative begins in black and white with red used to symbolize outside influences that intrude on Marguerite’s fragile shell. Her diagnosis and research help her cope with life, and color is introduced as she blooms- tying into the longer title of the book, “…living a life in full color”.

I won’t lie and say that I agree with everything in the book. While I did find it enlightening for a person with Aspergers to share how the outside world affects them, I thought her too rigid and her diagnosis did seem to be an excuse for her to avoid trying to change in certain ways. I realize it goes both ways, as people who do not have neurodivergent issues need to alter their actions to accommodate those who are different. I have a close family member who recently found out that they have a mild form of autism, and this is just one of many books I am reading to understand it more and to be an ally. I am thankful for this graphic novel and hope that the author and anyone else facing similar issues continue to grow and live their best lives.

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Ronan and the Endless Sea of Stars

This beautifully written memoir of child loss is gut-wrenching, yet also affirming. The author, Rick Louis, shares the loss of his toddler son to the debilitating and always fatal Tay-Sachs disease.

He and his wife Emily were thrilled at Ronan’s birth, but within a few months, they started to notice that Ronan was not hitting developmental milestones. But it wasn’t until an eye exam, that the truth was revealed, and they discovered there is no cure, with children typically not living beyond their third year. Despite therapy, Roan’s health declined, and sadly, so did Rick and Emily’s marriage. Unfortunately, grief destroys many marriages that undergo the loss of a child, thus this was a double loss to the little family. Ronan’s death is depicted tenderly, and I ached for the parents. Despite being a mother, I actually connected much more with Rick than Emily, although he does his best to be fair to his ex-wife and what she went through.

Artist Lara Antal illustrated the bittersweet narrative in black and white with shades of blue. These colors conveyed the somber mood and gave an accurate depiction of the family. The pictures flowed into one another, using few panels. The illustrations varied from factual to whimsical and spanned the entire gamut of emotions. The art matched the tone of the book, and you can tell great care was taken to share Rick’s story with respect.

After I read the story, I looked up some of the resources listed and found out that Emily has remarried and has another child. I’m unsure if Rick has remarried or had other children, but a quote of his, “Being Ronan’s father was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Sometimes I think taking care of him was the only truly important thing I ever did in my life. If it meant that I could see him just one more time, I would do it all over again. Even knowing I had to lose him”, touched my heart. I admire his honesty in sharing his memories of his sweet Ronan with the world and I hope it was cathartic for him.

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So Much For Love: How I Survived a Toxic Relationship

Part memoir, part self-help book, Sophie Lambda is a French illustrator who shares her disastrous love affair with a narcissist.

Sophie meets television actor Marcus at a Paris party and feels an immediate connection. After they re-meet months later they begin to correspond by texting and soon arrange to meet. The relationship progresses quickly and Sophie falls deeply in love. Marcus also declares his love for her and she feels like a new woman. As time goes by, cracks appear, but Sophie makes excuses for these first signs. The highs with him are just so wonderful that she balances the lows for far too long. Plus, Marcus expertly manipulates her making her doubt herself and he separates her from friends that would have noticed his toxic behavior.

Two-thirds of the way through this graphic novel, Sophie finally breaks it off with him, but the drama is not over, as he lies to others and tries to cover his multiple affairs. She begins therapy, as she is devastated and unable to recover from her emotional turmoil. Her therapist guides her through how to recognize a manipulator, and she realizes that there were signs early on that she swept under the rug because she was blinded by love. With a few stops and starts, she regains her life and her sanity and ends up helping Marcus’s next girlfriend when he continues his unhealthy patterns. Thus the last third of the book is a self-help manual, as Sophie shares her hard-won wisdom with others who might find themselves trapped in a toxic relationship.

The art is delightful, as Sophie takes a self-deprecating look at her life and builds comedy into it. A trash-talking teddy bear (unseen to all but herself) is her ally, and she isn’t afraid to show her own foibles. She keeps to a simple black-and-white color scheme, adding some blues and reds on occasion to amp up the emotions. Paris and French countryside landscapes are additionally appealing and the 300-page book goes by quickly.

While I have been lucky in love, I have witnessed unhealthy relationships in my extended family and in some friends’ lives. So while I may not have experienced these pitfalls myself, I hope this guide could help me be a good aide to someone who might need a hand in the future.

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Gender Queer

September 18th-24th is Banned Books Week, so I took the opportunity to read Gender Queer, a graphic novel that has been challenged numerous times since its publication in 2019.

Author and illustrator, Maia Kobabe, has written a memoir about their experiences growing up. Born a female, they now identify as non-binary and asexual and wish to use the e/em/eir pronouns. Maia struggled with their identity from an early age, and through various experiences decided what identity worked best. I believe Maia’s memoir could help someone struggling to realize that they are not alone, and it often is a zigzag path to discovering one’s true self.

So what exactly is so controversial that it is number one on the Top 10 Most Challenged List, considering it was nominated as a Stonewall Honor Book? One reason is the description and illustrations of sexual acts. Another is that some people judge gender identity harshly. What some people don’t understand, they will reject and demand others also reject it. But as author Judy Blume once said, “Censors don’t want children exposed to ideas different from their own. If every individual with an agenda had his/her way. the shelves in the school library would be close to empty“.

Now I don’t want to pretend that this book didn’t raise any issues with me- I think the adult themes make it a better fit for the adult collection than the teen collection, but it is on the teen 2023 Illinois Lincoln List, and as a teen librarian, I have a shelf for these award-winning books. Thus it will remain there and then go back into the teen/adult graphic novel collection next January when I showcase the 2024 list (they are always a year ahead). I’m proud to work at a library that does not censor. In fact, our rural library has all ten books found on the 2021 list. As I handle the social media for our library, I have shared graphics, links and pictures on our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts about Banned Books Week. Ultimately, people need to decide for themselves if they want to read this book, and I believe fully in everyone’s freedom to read! ❤

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Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey (Vol. 4)

Akiko is continuing to work at the call center and in Hidaka-sensei’s classroom while drawing and submitting manga to Bouquet magazine. Some of it sticks (such as a Thelma and Louise styled story), some doesn’t. When Bouquet ceases publication and a new magazine called Cookie starts up in its’ place. Challenged to write a youthful, more fashion-forward story, she writes “Dress Up Summer” which gets serialized. She’s finally bringing in money regularly from writing and drawing manga! After being invited to a publishing party in Tokyo, she meets Ishida Takumi and other manga creators for Cookie who live and work in Osaka. Akiko’s saved up enough by this point to move there… but what about Sensei and his students who are studying for their own exams?

I feel as if the pace slowed down a little bit in this volume, but in a good way. Akiko shows more details and events of her life during this time period. For example, she helps Sensei with a home project to make his garden look and feel more like Monet’s fabled gardens. We also see a visit from her boyfriend at the time, and all the sights they saw and the foods they ate in Miyazaki: including a meal from Sensei himself. All these events and details are meticulously rendered – so much so that I was craving the sushi that was shown!

A chapter that will be enjoyable for all readers (not just artists like myself) is the chapter where she explains the process of making manga. It’s so much more involved than even I thought! And so fascinating! It’s even more impressive that she did so much by herself, only in the evenings, for so long. It’s at this point that she recruits friends as assistants, for good reason!

More and more, this story becomes less about Akiko’s artists journey and more about the folly of youth and the illusion that comes with it: that we all have all the time in the world. From the beginning, she’s been foreshadowing that something has happened to Sensei since the events of this story, and that something is finally revealed in this volume. All her hints and “what if” sighs do nothing to make this gut punch any less heart wrenching and painful. At the end of this volume, she’s left with a choice: to go back to Miyazaki and help Sensei and his students, or to continue her upward rise in Osaka. I for one am very much looking forward to seeing her choice in the next volume.

– Kathleen

Higashimura, Akiko. Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey (Vol. 4). 2020.

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Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey (Vol. 3)

Everyone’s asking Akiko what she’s doing after graduation – but she doesn’t have a clue. She’s working part-time at a used bookstore while finishing school. It’s a pretty sweet gig – she gets to take home unsellable manga for free to read and study. While she still wants to become a manga artist, she still hasn’t drawn any manga, nor has she told anyone that’s what she wants to do. She ends up returning home to Miyazaki after graduating because Hidaka says he got her a teaching job. It ends up falling through, so he offers her a part-time job as his assistant instead. Her parents, eager for her to get on her feet, get her a job at her father’s company’s call center. Deeply unhappy and desperate, Akiko finally starts to draw manga and sends it to Bouquet magazine for a contest entry. She’s finally pursuing her dream, but how long until it gets out of the bag?

This volume was honestly pretty depressing. It reminded me of my days working two jobs, thinking I could also make art in my spare time. Though it does highlight the thing I appreciate the most about this manga: being an artist is hard. Finding the time to be an artist is hard. Akiko thankfully made it work for her, but not without her own unique struggles.

Something else to appreciate about this manga: she showed examples of other famous manga artists’ work by drawing a character in a few of their styles! Most I didn’t recognize, but it was a nice touch, especially considering her mention that she studied different manga and their styles during this period of her life.

Looking forward to the next volume!

– Kathleen

Higashimura, Akiko. Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey (Vol. 3). 2019.

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And Now I Spill the Family Secrets

Margaret Kimball’s memoir starts with her mother’s suicide attempt on Mother’s Day 1988: the secret in her family, the thing they never talk about. She traces the event and the effect it had on her family throughout her life, and backwards through her family tree. With the gift of hindsight, she identifies how she grew up around her mother’s mental illness through her parents’ separation, divorce, and her father’s remarriage. And now, catching up to the present day, how she sees her mother in her brother Ted.

This was a tough read. The presentation was unique and immaculate. The illustrations were entirely in black and white and almost solely scenery (such as a room in a house, a street, or the exterior of a building) or memorabilia such as photographs, video stills, and transcripts of diaries. The only figures we see at all are those from the recreations of photographs and video stills. In that regard, this memoir feels extra personal and criminally invasive. I felt while reading as if I was going through her dirty laundry – which was probably the point. Since no one in her family talks about anything important, neither does the book offer a figure to serve as a narrator nor any characters other than who we see in Kimball’s recreations. The reader is left along only with Kimball’s words in a room we don’t know.

However difficult it is to get through, we are rewarded with an intimate portrait of how mental illness affects a family. I’d give it to an older teen. The presentation is easily among the best I’ve seen this year, so it’s worth checking out for that alone.

– Kathleen

Kimball, Margaret. And Now I Spill the Family Secrets. 2021.

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Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey (Vol. 2)

Akiko Higashimura continues her manga memoir immediately after Volume 1 ends. She is in her last exam to try and get into one last art school. Afterwards, she is so sure she failed since she was so distracted by Sensei’s last phone call. However, she gets an acceptance letter from the last school: she got into Kanazawa! Once she’s all moved and settled in, she goofs off like a typical college student would. She feels like she can’t create like she could in Sensei’s classroom. On her trip home for summer break, he sets her straight, and she manages to create all three paintings for her joint review. It’s a very important presentation and critique of your work by your professors in front of your peers. Can she pass the joint review and continue art school? If she does, can she get her act together for the next year?
 
Not gonna lie, I spent most of this book wanting to smack some sense into Akiko. It felt like we went through the first volume, but in reverse. We see how hard she worked to get into art school, only to see her revert back to her old ways and goof off again in college. We get more insight into her and Sensei’s relationship, and while it’s clear that at the time of writing she regrets her actions… it was just cringey to read. I really hope some situations and feelings were exaggerated for dramatic effect.
 
At the same time, I was having hardcore flashbacks of my undergrad college days in the art program, and of my senior thesis in particular. The meticulously detailed environments of the art school and studios made me smell the clay, the paint, the turpentine, the gesso, fresh dust off the sandpaper. It’s very nostalgic and incredibly sad for me. Those halcyon days are long gone for me.
 
The main draw continues to be Akiko and Sensei’s relationship, as well as (for me at least) the reminder of living as an artist. Looking forward to the next volume.
 
– Kathleen
 
Higasimura, Akiko. Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey (Vol. 2). 2019.
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