Recent Reads

130. Pen and Ink
Book blurb: Exploring over 100 pieces of artwork by contemporary artists, Pen & Ink highlights and examines the different techniques, qualities, and effects relating to each piece.

This little book is like holding a small curated collection of pen and ink art in your hands. I appreciated the diverse styles on display with this simple medium, and as with all collections some art spoke to me while others did not. I would have liked more information about the pieces themselves, still, this is a good book to flip through when you're looking for pen and ink inspiration. Rating: 3 stars.

131. Hostage
3.5 stars.

Translated from the French by Helge Dascher.

Moved this up my TBR for non-fiction November. If you are familiar with his oeuvre, you know that the author usually writes graphic memoirs about his life as the spouse of a Doctors Without Borders administrator in various parts of the world. This book departs from his usual fare and tells the true story of Christophe Andre, a man kidnapped on his very first MSF assignment. You know that Christophe survives because he is the one telling the story to the author, but I think if you decide to read this book, the less you know about where he's taken, how long he's held, and how he survives the better the reveal.

The author uses his signature illustration style and a limited color palette to wonderfully evoke the right mood for this experience. Boredom and mundane life stuff is intermingled with moments of sheer terror, and the use of first person point of view is very effective. How would one stay sane when held captive and is mostly in isolation? I couldn't help thinking that this would have been a very different story if the kidnapped person was a woman.

I really liked the art style, but this one is over 400 pages and very little happens for most of it. I understand that we don't know anything about the kidnappers and their motivation because of the language barrier, so we only know what the narrator knows, which is nothing at all. On the plus side this created the right level of bleakness in the reading, but on the other hand, there were times when all that day to day repetition seemed tedious. I do think that the author captures the slow manner in which time passed for the hostage effectively, so for that I'll round up. Rating: 4 stars.

132. Lighter Than My Shadow
Book blurb: Lighter Than My Shadow is a hand-drawn story of struggle and recovery, a trip into the black heart of a taboo illness, an exposure of those who are so weak as to prey on the vulnerable, and an inspiration to anybody who believes in the human power to endure towards happiness.

Moved this up my TBR for non-fiction November, and I've procrastinated writing my review for this graphic memoir because I'm not sure I can adequately convey why I love it so. I find that's often true for things that evoke deep emotion. All you can say is "you had to be there."

This is a book that deals with the author's struggles with anxiety, anorexia, and sexual assault, and it's not an easy book to read. I loved the art, and how she tells her story. There are so many panels/pages without words, and it's a powerful way to leave space for the reader's own emotions about the material.

Let's first talk about the physical book. Weight is an issue throughout this narrative. Her weight, or lack of it, in particular, so it's rather amazing that this 500 page volume has the heft it does. The heft of the book is much heavier than you'd expect, or it needs to be. You read this story of a girl/ woman struggling with weight while holding an overly heavy book in your hands. It's a tactile experience. Then there are these dark black squiggly tornado like lines that hover over her head, sometimes it's small, and other times it takes over the panel/page. It wasn't until about half way through the book that I realized that those squiggles actually have texture. I went back and ran my fingers over the pages I had already read. Another tactile clue while reading. So even though I was reading a 2D book, there was additional information being transmitted to my brain.

As mentioned earlier, I love the artistic style of the illustrations. The monochromatic use of color is very effective in setting the right mood. I appreciated the honesty in the telling. The author says in the introduction: "It exists because I wanted nobody else to feel as lost, confused and alone as I felt. I wanted to be honest about how hard recovery is, and how long it takes, at the same providing that it is possible." We might not struggle with her exact issues, but anyone who struggles with something will seem parts of themselves in this story. I looked a long time at some of her wordless scenes as entire worlds seem captured in them. There's an illustration where she's eaten something, and the black squiggly tornado is inside her body. She opens her mouth and reaches her hand down her throat trying to pull it out. There are no words, but I don't think I've ever understood the urge to purge in such a visceral way before.

My library system has the Young Adult label on this one, and I would highly recommend it to anyone struggling/recovering from these issues, and everyone who loves them. Rating: 5 stars.