Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
232nd out of 1,499 books
—
3,017 voters
Swallow Me Whole
by
Nate Powell
Swallow Me Whole is a love story carried by rolling fog, terminal illness, hallucination, apophenia, insect armies, secrets held, unshakeable faith, and the search for a master pattern to make sense of one's unraveling. Two adolescent stepsiblings hold together amidst schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, family breakdown, animal telepathy, misguided love, and the...more
Hardcover, 216 pages
Published
December 2nd 2008
by Top Shelf Productions
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
1,706)
Damnit! I just wrote a long ass review and the goddamn internet ate it up and shit it out in some unknowable aether. Fuckers.
Whatever.
The review was good, but now you're just going to have to trust me on that because there's no way in fucking hell I'm re-typing it.
Anyway, I've been following Nate Powell since I found his punk-inspired minis, and he was and is one of the best draftsmen in comics today. That said, he often spirals off into doodle-y dream-narratives with tons of boring-to-read expe...more
Whatever.
The review was good, but now you're just going to have to trust me on that because there's no way in fucking hell I'm re-typing it.
Anyway, I've been following Nate Powell since I found his punk-inspired minis, and he was and is one of the best draftsmen in comics today. That said, he often spirals off into doodle-y dream-narratives with tons of boring-to-read expe...more
This book is deep and difficult for me to write about as I'm not sure I "got" the whole thing. I'll make an attempt at my impressions. Two siblings both have psychological problems. The girl, Ruth, is the main character and suffers from delusions, paranoia, schizophrenia and OCD while her brother seems to suffer on a lesser degree from delusions. They also have their grandmother living at home with them as she is dying and also delusional. The book follows the girl's descent into madness while t...more
3 likes · like · see review
Step-siblings Ruth and Perry share an uncommon bond.
Ruth is plagued by insects only she can see and hear. Their restless shell-bodies with their incessant wings fill up the fluorescent light casings above her head in class, smack furiously at her nighttime bedroom window, and swarm in clouds around her head and on her face during walks home from school. An amateur and secret taxidermist, she obsessively collects preserved animal specimens in jars in her closet, and in her menagerie she senses so...more
Ruth is plagued by insects only she can see and hear. Their restless shell-bodies with their incessant wings fill up the fluorescent light casings above her head in class, smack furiously at her nighttime bedroom window, and swarm in clouds around her head and on her face during walks home from school. An amateur and secret taxidermist, she obsessively collects preserved animal specimens in jars in her closet, and in her menagerie she senses so...more
I found this book to be a very compelling graphic novel, perhaps because of my brushes with schizophrenia (in my friends, not in myself) and hallucination. Ruthy and Perry's world is a world that cannot admit other people; eventually Ruthy cannot even allow Perry in, too.
I was deeply pleased by the way that it presented various hallucinations as not horrific but rather interesting. I don't believe that hallucination is an unmixed blessing, perhaps due to reading too much William James, and yet i...more
I was deeply pleased by the way that it presented various hallucinations as not horrific but rather interesting. I don't believe that hallucination is an unmixed blessing, perhaps due to reading too much William James, and yet i...more
1 like · like · see review
I really liked this. It's basically the story about two siblings dealing with school, friendships, family, significant others, mental disabilities, sanity, love, and finding your place in the world.
The art is beautiful and creative and just fun.
I read this all in one go, and it was a very enjoyable read. I loved all the characters - with all of their many, many flaws - and the story was brilliantly written, scripted, and worked, from beginning to end.
One thing that really stuck out to me was the...more
The art is beautiful and creative and just fun.
I read this all in one go, and it was a very enjoyable read. I loved all the characters - with all of their many, many flaws - and the story was brilliantly written, scripted, and worked, from beginning to end.
One thing that really stuck out to me was the...more
You know this is a great graphic novel if you’ve done your best to read it twice and then Google the title so you can read what this book was actually about! Nate Powell pushes what illustrated literature can achieve in Swallow Me Whole because a movie, a novel, a mobisode, a poem, a short story—any other genre couldn’t accomplish what’s been achieve here. This novel is about two step siblings suffering from mental illness. I was confused exactly about which character was afflicted with schizoph...more
A lovely, enigmatic story of family, incipient schizophrenia, friendship, alienation and, above all, love. Ruthy, a HS girl fascinated with "story" - whether it's nature's book or more conventional novels and her stepbrother, a budding graphic artist - who draws from compulsion more than desire - are out of sorts and out of place. Their family loves them, they are very supportive of each other but they're having to deal, constantly. Memaw/grandma comes home from the hospital to, the reader reali...more
This was one of the most disturbingly entertaining graphic novels i've ever read. It's about two siblings who have these really strange hallucinations because of their psychological state. The main character, Ruth, has all of these crazy moments were she starts seeing a whole swarms of insects that, hence the title, swallow her whole. Her brother suffers a slightly different type of illusions about a wizard that makes him draw. I think this book was incredibly tense especially when she starts to...more
I expected Swallow Me Whole to be a sweet, melancholy story of adolescence. I was unprepared for how disturbing and sad it is. I was also disturbed to get partway into the book and realize that the awesomely cute character Powell had drawn in my signed copy was actually an anthropomorphic pill.
There are a lot of pills in Swallow Me Whole. The story centers around siblings Ruth and Perry, who each have their hidden adolescent demons which manifest in different ways. Perry draws and Ruth obsesses...more
There are a lot of pills in Swallow Me Whole. The story centers around siblings Ruth and Perry, who each have their hidden adolescent demons which manifest in different ways. Perry draws and Ruth obsesses...more
Hook, Line & Sinker: Nate Powell’s Swallow Me Whole
Once a year (at best), I come across a title so powerful that it compels me to stop back at the comic store and devour everything else that the author has written. From every standpoint imaginable, Swallow Me Whole by Nate Powell is an unmitigated masterpiece. You can read four dozen black and white titles this year before you find something that even begins to approach the beauty, scope, originality and genius of this story. I’m not one to...more
Once a year (at best), I come across a title so powerful that it compels me to stop back at the comic store and devour everything else that the author has written. From every standpoint imaginable, Swallow Me Whole by Nate Powell is an unmitigated masterpiece. You can read four dozen black and white titles this year before you find something that even begins to approach the beauty, scope, originality and genius of this story. I’m not one to...more
It's almost cliche at this point to praise Nate Powell's Swallow Me Whole, but it's not like there's any honest alternative. The book is just too good for anything else. Talented illustrator? Check. Talented storyteller? Check. Imaginative? Funny? Insightful? Worthwhile? All systems are go. Powell's art reminds me of some delicate hybrid between Craig Thompson and David Lapham—and amusingly, Swallow Me Whole is like some strange cross-pollination between Blankets and Silverfish.
Okay, well not re...more
Okay, well not re...more
Apr 13, 2009
Becky
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
8th grade and up
Shelves:
graphic-novels
This is probably the strangest, most haunting graphic novel I have ever read. It loosely depicts several years in one family, focusing on the teenage daughter, Ruth. Ruth has always loved order, hated killing, heard preserved insects talking to her, and seen things no one else has seen. As the reader, you never see or hear quite enough to figure out what's going on (shadows obscure action; words are written illegibly) -- and I think that's the point -- what can anyone, even the person afflicted,...more
Powell is described as working full time with people with developmental disabilities. He also runs a punk record label and performs in several bands... and oh, yeah, does these amazing, detailed graphic novels, by the way...This is y first encounter with him, in this story about a family dealing with a dying grandmother who is losing it, and two teens dealing with early onset schizophrenia/hallucination. The focus is on the two kids, with primary focus on the girl's more serious, less able to hi...more
I feel like I should love this graphic novel, but I don't. Living in the same city as Nate Powell everyone hypes this book up a bunch. The college here uses it in some of their literature classes. I can see why this might be, there's no superheroes and it looks at what might happen to people who given into their delusions. I for one didn't enjoy the book. I love comics that don't have superheroes, but this one wasn't my style.
The graphic novel is about two siblings that hear voices and sometimes...more
The graphic novel is about two siblings that hear voices and sometimes...more
Ruth sees things, hears things, that aren't there. Her brother has a talking wizard that tells him what to draw. They both have a sick, dying grandmother sleeping on their coach. Ruth is obsessed with insects and has them in jars in her room. She also has OCD and is constantly rearranging the jars to find just the right combination. Ruth and her brother are just trying to survive high school, and life. They find love, the find friends and they find each other all while trying to find ways to cop...more
Powell certainly has improved in my eye since Sounds of Your Name. I'm not sure if this is an accurate depiction of mental illness, but it is in regards to coping/not coping with both mental/imaginative issues and the complexities of day-to-day adolescent life. Coping with feeling "crazy," especially when the world is telling you you're crazy when it seems crazy itself (see the Creationist science class and "Baby Ruth" scene) is hard, and there are a myriad of both seemingly random and deliberat...more
Nov 12, 2008
Brea Jones
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone who likes comics not about superheroes
Recommended to Brea by:
zane
a great indie comic that deals with schizophrenia and family.
to be perfectly honest, i'm not sure i understood it 100% of the time, but i somehow still got a lot out of it.
i would suggest trying to read it in one or two sittings as well. spread out over a week or two, it was hard to keep up with.
to be perfectly honest, i'm not sure i understood it 100% of the time, but i somehow still got a lot out of it.
i would suggest trying to read it in one or two sittings as well. spread out over a week or two, it was hard to keep up with.
I had such high hopes for a longer comic by Nate Powell, but this book really fell short of my expectations. A lot of the story was hard to follow, which may have been somewhat intentional since the story deals with schizophrenia, but unfortunately that doesn't make it any less difficult to understand. If he had done a better job moving between external narrator and character experience, I would have had more tolerance for some of the confusion. For example, I discovered that the main characters...more
2 likes · like · see review
Oh, be still my beating heart. Swallow Me Whole read like a typical Nate Powell book but with a fucking strange surrealist twist. I suppose it's a common theme in most of his works-- but it's always been in the background, accenting the main plot. This time around, it owns the storyline-- which I appreciated.
It was pretty heartbreaking to read, noting that it heavily discussed the impact of mental illness on a family unit, not to mention how it shapes ones adolescence.
Mash together Epileptic by...more
It was pretty heartbreaking to read, noting that it heavily discussed the impact of mental illness on a family unit, not to mention how it shapes ones adolescence.
Mash together Epileptic by...more
Swallow Me Whole is a graphic novel about a girl and her brother. It tells the story of how the two both face mental illnesses; delusions, paranoia, OCD, schizophrenia and possibly more. Ruth, the sister, seems to suffer from them the worst, while the brother, Perry, only seems to have delusions. Their grandmother also lives with them as she is dying, and it seems she is delusional as well. The people around them seem to just brush it off or ignore it. Ruth and her brother are the only ones who...more
A very surreal look, and an extremely insane take on sequential art. Of course, that was the goal, so such indeed does the comic justice.
Unfortunately, it's not of my typical fare, so I didn't enjoy this work as much as I probably should have. While the setting is very familiar to most, there is no development of characters or setting added to the story; much of it is meant to be understood already, and the comic has an atmosphere that may be alienating to some readers.
The visuals are nothing sh...more
Unfortunately, it's not of my typical fare, so I didn't enjoy this work as much as I probably should have. While the setting is very familiar to most, there is no development of characters or setting added to the story; much of it is meant to be understood already, and the comic has an atmosphere that may be alienating to some readers.
The visuals are nothing sh...more
My favourite graphic novel to date, Swallow Me Whole in a consuming glimpse into the life of a family with hereditary mental illness. Using dark and dream-like graphics and sparse dialogue, Powell masterfully develops the tone of the novel, and he easily convinces you that mental illness is another dimension into which anyone can easily slip.
Right from the start, the book is rich in symbolism - the first page of the book shows a dejected frog being preserved in a specimen jar. Later, we meet a l...more
Right from the start, the book is rich in symbolism - the first page of the book shows a dejected frog being preserved in a specimen jar. Later, we meet a l...more
I really wanted to like this book but it was so fragmented and hard to follow that I just wasn't quite sure what was going on. I did get the sense of the mental illness taking over, and I loved Powell's drawings. However, sometimes I couldn't tell what was happening in a drawing. Until I read other reviews, I didn't realize that it takes place over several years. I was confused about the characters. Basically, I just felt disoriented the whole time I was reading. And maybe that's what Powell was...more
This was a confusing book about a family with many mental problems- a grandmother, brother and sister. It wasn't clear to me exactly what those problems were and I had to read the reviews to find out the exact nature of the problems, which included OCD and schizophrenia and hallucinations. I found it rather unbelievable that these two teens were able to navigate through the world so well when they were also trying to cope with mental illness, and their parents seemed rather clueless to me. Too m...more
I didn't like this book. It was really confusing and hard to follow - partially because the characters were not introduced in a clear way in the beginning and partially because the drawings were so muddled it was often hard to tell what you were looking at. Some of that was stylistic choices - I guess this is what it feels to be schizophrenic? - but really it just made the book confusing to the point where it was hard to care about any of the characters because you never really knew what was goi...more
Magical, touching, captivating, funny, and beautifully drawn, this is probably the best graphic novel I've read this year.
This was some real serious beautiful emo stuff.
It was masterfully drawn, though after a while, it got to be too much, every page was complex and liney and full of creepy bugs, and it might have been good to mix it up a little.
The story was too nebulous in telling to really compel me -- it should have committed to either being about mood or about plot. I think I would have preferred the former. About being totally crazy when you're a teenager and still trying to get by, the last 30 pages or so le...more
It was masterfully drawn, though after a while, it got to be too much, every page was complex and liney and full of creepy bugs, and it might have been good to mix it up a little.
The story was too nebulous in telling to really compel me -- it should have committed to either being about mood or about plot. I think I would have preferred the former. About being totally crazy when you're a teenager and still trying to get by, the last 30 pages or so le...more
The art was good, but the storytelling garbled and meandering. There were numerous panels I simply didn't get the meaning of and/or that didn't tie into anything, there was no sense of direction or pacing, certain characters and situations were introduced and then discarded without really making an impact, or a situation would develop seemingly out of nowhere and with no apparent meaning or consequence. None of the characters were fleshed out nor the very serious mental health issues which are g...more
Reading other reviews, I noted that lot's of other people thought they didn't quite "get" the book, and I think for a piece like this, it's okay not to completely "get" it. I think this is an amazing depiction of mental illness, that doesn't seem completely foreign to the average reader. Despite obsessive compulsive disorder and medicated illness, the main character is still as much human as possible. In the final 20 pages I got teary and choked up (doesn't take much for me, but still) seeing th...more
The incredibly dark story of Perry and Ruth, a brother and sister who are both suffering from mental illness. Imagine the combination of adolescence mixed with "mental disorders, family breakdown, animal telepathy, misguded love, and the faint hope that everything will someday make sense." Powell's black and white illustrations lend to the story's cold atmosphere and feeling of despair. There are hopeful moments, but when I finished I found myself on the edge of feeling a bit desperate myself. C...more
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Nov 14, 2009 01:30pm