An affecting, witty graphic memoir filled with honesty and insight.
Cheshire recounts the emotional aftermath of her mother’s death from pancreatic cancer.
Cartoonist Cheshire’s life was upended when her mother was diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer. In her graphic memoir, she chronicles the five stages of grief after her mother’s passing. Central to the story, which sets the tone from the first sentence (“I get that death isn’t a tasty dish for anyone”), is the metaphor that mourning is “a jigsaw puzzle where pointless pieces inexplicably appear.” Cheshire draws readers into her shifting emotional landscape where anger, numbness, guilt, and love all mixed. Each chapter builds on the last, chronicling an evolving process, from the early days of shock and denial to an uneasy acceptance. Despite the weighty subject matter, the book is often light (“You’re looking beyond grim, kiddo”), injecting humor into an account of Cheshire’s losing “one of the most important people in my life.” The artwork swirls with feeling, conveying the personalities of Cheshire and her mother, Mari Carmen, along with the infuriating and depressing experience of watching a parent get sicker. The design choices—simple panels, shifting frames, and symbolic motifs—create a visual rhythm that mirrors the disorientation of grief, which can swing from heartbreaking to funny (“Mari Carmen was full of life. Pun not intended”). This is a moving, endearing tale, rendered more immediate by the author’s depictions of her mother holding, praising, and arguing with her; working as an ER nurse; or volunteering at the dog shelter. Throughout, the memoir avoids sentimentality as it depicts destabilizing loss (“The only times that came to mind were when we fought. Something we did a ton of”) and tells a story that lingers long after the final page.
An affecting, witty graphic memoir filled with honesty and insight.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9781545819746
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Mad Cave Studios/Maverick
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A personal view of karma, likely to appeal mainly to readers curious about reincarnation and related topics.
A semiautobiographical guide to the dynamics of karma in everyday life.
A Los Angeles–based shaman and “spiritual empath,” Dunblazier stays faithful to the spirit of her earlier books, which include Heal Your Soul History (2017). She sees karma as “the accumulation of the energy of all your actions and the responses to them over time and space”—in both your past and present lives—and says that in her past lives, she’s been an African tribal leader from around 1000 BCE and a French American from the 1900s. Each of the five parts of her book begins with a parable from one of her past lives and goes on to cover a range of everyday challenges from time management to how to handle feeling attracted to someone already in a relationship. At the end of each section, the author suggests a self-help ritual that can help you achieve a goal, such as “Free Yourself from the Opinion of Others.” Dunblazier keeps her message positive, reflecting her belief that “regardless of your circumstances right now, your patterns do not obligate you to continue them if they no longer serve you,” and she packs an extensive amount of material into 325 pages. Not everyone will buy her views on subjects like demons or telepathy, and Penn’s bold illustration of a concentration camp prisoner, in an image that also shows a crowd of smiling, well-dressed people around a table bearing a vast amount of food, will strike some as insensitive. Nevertheless, even readers skeptical of whether they are reading the words of a reincarnated Chief Running Bear may be intrigued by her information on how people make use of concepts like totem animals. For most readers, this book will provide different ways of looking at things. And who wouldn’t want to believe, as the author does, that in the end “you are the master of your universe”?
A personal view of karma, likely to appeal mainly to readers curious about reincarnation and related topics. (notes, bibliography)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-9963907-6-7
Page Count: 324
Publisher: GoTracee Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Delightfully snarky existentialism that reads like the millennial descendant of “Love Is.” (Graphic fiction. 14-adult)
Originally a webcomic, Minelli’s vignettes ruminate on life, love, and anxiety.
Black-and-white (with the occasional color accent), this anthology collects a series of mostly four-paneled comic strips (with the occasional six- or eight-panel length bits). Populated mainly by an unnamed female character and her similarly unnamed boyfriend, this bitingly observant collection depicts the most mundane aspects of everyday life and relationships—sharing a bed with a partner, feeling anxiety in a world seemingly overwhelmed with unending horrors—through an empathetically humorous lens. Most of the sketches examine more adult problems, however many, like those focusing on self-doubt or finding joy, are universal. In the wordless piece “Thank You,” the unnamed main character sits on her bed in a dark room and cries only to be comforted by the arrival of her dog. In another, “So Cute,” the male character reflects on how adorable his girlfriend is while sleeping—until she farts on him. The foreword by Jonathan Kunz and Elizabeth Pich explains their theory of #sadbutfunny and describes how Minelli strives to impart readers with a sense of hope. With a nod toward introversion, all things comfy, and love of geek culture, expect this to resonate with fans of webcomic “Sarah Scribbles” by Sarah Andersen or Book Loveby Debbie Tung (2019). Both unnamed characters are white.
Delightfully snarky existentialism that reads like the millennial descendant of “Love Is.” (Graphic fiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-62010-715-7
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Oni Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2020
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