A raw, honest, and frequently hilarious account of becoming a parent in the worst possible year.
A cartoonist reflects on the birth of her first child and how it upends her life.
In this appealingly candid graphic memoir, Wertz (Impossible People: A Completely Average Recovery Story, 2023) returns with a very different kind of book: her pregnancy and entrée into motherhood. She opens in Petaluma, California, where she and her boyfriend, Oliver, are still adjusting to the quiet of small-town life. An unexpected pregnancy prompts a moment of self-reflection in Wertz. She wonders why she doesn’t feel more prepared, as her career is relatively stable and she and Oliver are on “the wrong side” of their mid-30s. A miscarriage at seven weeks renders the question moot but also clarifies things; she and Oliver try again, and, this time, the pregnancy results in the birth of their son, Felix. What distinguishes the book from the crowded shelf of new-parent memoirs is its unflinching catalog of everything else that goes wrong at once. The pregnancy unfolds against a backdrop of Northern California wildfires and, soon enough, a global pandemic, lending the book’s domestic anxieties an almost surreal scale. A life-altering accident, family trauma, and a hasty wedding round out what Wertz, with characteristic self-deprecation, presents as a perfectly ordinary disaster. The format is a happy mix: Cartoons, photographs, stick-figure doodles, and short prose essays sit side by side, toggling between slapstick and sincerity in a way that every parent will recognize. Wertz’s line work—spare, expressive, and very funny—carries as much emotional weight as the text. Her self-portrait as a wide-eyed, hapless protagonist navigating body horror and new parental love is, ultimately, a portrait of frazzled resilience.
A raw, honest, and frequently hilarious account of becoming a parent in the worst possible year.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9780762468287
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2026
An impassioned message of rage and hope.
The author of Persepolis returns with a collection about burgeoning activism in Iran.
In September 2022, the beating and death of Mahsa Jina Amini, an Iranian student arrested for not wearing her headscarf properly, incited a solidarity movement among women and men that spread around the world. To publicize and bear witness to this major uprising, Satrapi has gathered stories, cartoons, and essays from more than 20 artists, activists, journalists, and academics. The author has two aims: “to explain what’s going on in Iran, to decipher events in all their complexity and nuance for a non-Iranian readership, and to help you understand them as fully as possible”; and “to remind Iranians that they are not alone.” Setting the movement in context, Iranian American historian Abbas Milani offers an overview of the political upheavals and revolutions that have led to the current misogynist, repressive regime and the “resolute defiance” that has emerged in protest. As each contributor attests, life under a wrathful dictatorship is consistently frightening and dangerous: “The Islamic Republic ensures its own survival by murdering people. During the successive demonstrations” over Amini’s murder, “several hundred people were killed in an attempt to strike fear into the hearts of protesters. Young people were forced to confess under torture.” Women are especially vulnerable. Since November 2022, young students in schools across Iran have been poisoned by toxic gas as part of an attempt to force girls’ schools to close. Protecting the regime falls to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a paramilitary organization that answers directly to Khomeini, the Supreme Leader, and for the past four decades has carried out a reign of terror. This collection pays homage to victims and celebrates the dreams of Iran’s determined activists. Other contributors include Joanne Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Paco Roca, and Mana Neyestani.
An impassioned message of rage and hope.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9781644214053
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Seven Stories
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
IN THE NEWS
A sharp compendium of dreamy visions that could only have come from the iconic cartoonist’s sleeping mind.
The renowned cartoonist taps into Freud, Jung, and Kabbalah to discuss what happens when the head hits the pillow.
Chast, famed New Yorker cartoonist and winner of the inaugural Kirkus Prize for Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? makes it clear that while your own dreams may be inherently interesting, listening to other’ dreams is markedly not. Thankfully, the author’s thumbnail depictions of dreams that span a cross section of her bedside dream journal bring just enough humor and wit for readers to be charmed instantly. “This book is dedicated to the Dream District of our brains,” writes the author, “that weird and uncolonized area where anything can happen, from the sublime to the mundane to the ridiculous to the off-the-charts bats.” Familiar classics—“alone at a party,” “teeth falling out”—sit alongside the bizarre and hilarious—e.g., “too many birds not enough cages.” Even actor Wallace Shawn, son of former New Yorker editor William Shawn, makes an appearance: “He and I were walking down Main Street in a town in Connecticut and I needed to point something out to him: ‘Look, It’s a Broccoli Patch!’ ” From “Recurring Dreams” to “Nightmares” to “Dream Fragments or Ones That Got Away,” Chast explores beyond the first blush of the strange and personal in dreams. She writes, “here’s what’s interesting: dreams come out of my brain…as I sleep, I am creating them…so why, as they unfold, am I always so surprised?!??” The author reaches for answers beyond Freud and Jung to a wider range of insights from Kabbalah, Aristotle, neuroscientists, molecular biologists, and more. Illustrations and visual storytelling weave together a broad range of content on dreams that offers insight while never feeling burdensome or overly analytical. Easy on the eyes and witty, this book will have readers reaching for their own dream journals.
A sharp compendium of dreamy visions that could only have come from the iconic cartoonist’s sleeping mind.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781620403228
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
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