With admirable inquisitiveness, a cartoonist shares what she learns about her little-understood neighbor: North Korea.
Seeking to bridge the divide.
Growing up in South Korea in the 1980s, Gendry-Kim was told by her teachers that communists in North Korea had horns. “Naturally, I figured their leader, Kim Il Sung, must look the same,” the acclaimed cartoonist writes in her latest work, a graphic memoir. And so the author set out to determine what is real—and what isn’t—about Kim’s grandson: North Korea’s current leader, the baby-faced dictator Kim Jong Un. The same curiosity that led Gendry-Kim to research wartime sexual slavery for her graphic novel Grass (2019) has her interview a range of people to better understand the nation that is just to the north of Ganghwa Island, where she lives with her French husband and a Welsh Corgi (Carrot) and a mixed-breed dog (Potato). From their home, the couple regularly hears artillery fire—the noise of two countries engaging in military drills. “What kind of nonsense is that?” her husband asks when gunfire interrupts his reading on the porch. Kim is “as elusive as smoke,” the author observes, but, in her slightly scattered yet eye-opening narrative, she gleans telling details from her discussions about North-South relations. In spare but vivid drawings, she recounts conversations with, among others, the former personal chef of Kim Jong Il, who likens the late North Korean leader, a movie buff, to a film director who “uses the same actors throughout the film.” By contrast, his son, Kim Jong Un, is like a basketball coach who “switches out players”—that is, if a coach were to have his family members executed. A North Korean defector says, “Kim Jong Un hasn’t harmed ordinary people,…On the other hand, Kim Jong Il kept order by killing ordinary people.” Surprisingly, the defector also says those ordinary North Koreans have more freedom than one might imagine: “In North Korea, people speak more freely to their superiors. You can’t just fire someone since the state hired them.”
With admirable inquisitiveness, a cartoonist shares what she learns about her little-understood neighbor: North Korea.Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781770468221
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
A memoir for those who want to laugh through the free fall of their own emotional roller coaster.
A humorous take on dread.
In her amusing graphic memoir, cartoonist Correll turns her emotional roller coaster into a literal, visual experience with her own amusement park of worries that she calls Anxietyland. Within this playful framework, she guides readers through her lifelong struggle with severe anxiety—there are attractions like the “worry-go-round,” “booze cruise,” “downward spiral,” and more, all culminating in finding the help that not only helps her manage the anxiety, but pushes her to do the work in confronting and living with it. To her credit, Correll uses the amusement park concept to dissect points in her life where her anxiety was holding her hostage from leading a fulfilling life. One panel shows Correll’s whimsical approach, as when her cat, Oliver, goes missing. “Why hasn’t he come home?” she thinks, her eyes full of worry, her mouth downturned. “What if he’s dead?” The subsequent image shows her pet peeking into the panel; the accompanying text reads, “Oliver (very much alive).” It’s one thing to read a memoir that breaks down episodes with the benefit of time and knowledge; it’s a completely different experience to see someone living through their depression while hanging on for dear life in “anxie-tea” cups. Readers who hold season passes to Anxietyland will be able to laugh along with the author, but this book will also benefit those coming to terms with a new or future anxiety diagnosis. These readers may, for the first time, be able to put their swirling emotions into a tangible context that makes more sense to them and others. That’s the beauty of Correll’s memoir: The book provides a comical medium lens that can open doors to understanding—rather than a door to the house of horrors.
A memoir for those who want to laugh through the free fall of their own emotional roller coaster.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781668004159
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 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
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