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Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations

Mira Jacob (Goodreads Author)

4.49 · Rating details · 20,117 ratings · 3,184 reviews

Mira Jacob's touching, often humorous, and utterly unique graphic memoir takes readers on her journey as a first-generation American. At an increasingly fraught time for immigrants and their families, Good Talk delves into the difficult conversations about race, sex, love, and family that seem to be unavoidable these days.

Inspired by her popular BuzzFeed piece "37 Difficul ...more

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Hardcover, 349 pages

Published March 26th 2019 by One World

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May 27, 2019 Emily May rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2019, memoirs-or-bios, graphic-novels

“I'm supposed to be thankful for everything. Thank you for publishing me! Thank you for asking me to attend an event! Thank you for thanking me for writing characters you could relate to despite them being Indian! Thank you for saying you almost felt like they were just normal people!”

4 ½ stars. Mira Jacob has done such an amazing job with this graphic memoir that it's hard to know what to praise first. The meditation on interracial families and racism in America? The mixed media artwork? The warm and funny dialogue between Mira and the characters?

I guess I'll start with the first one. Good Talk literally is a "memoir in conversations". It begins with Mira discussing Michael Jackson and race with her six-year-old son. In order to answer his questions about being Indian-American, being brown, being white, and just why Donald Trump got elected, Mira must examine those questions herself.

She takes us back to her parents' arranged marriage, then to them coming to America, then to her own childhood of being deemed ugly because she is dark-skinned, and then to later struggles with dating and publishing her manuscript with distinctly Indian names.

She covers so many things like white men fetishizing Indian women, interviewers explaining how things are in America even though she was born there herself, and her white Jewish in-laws supporting Trump because they don't believe he is actually racist. It all builds up to what we know is coming - the 2016 election - but her hope throughout that America will be better and not make that choice is, with hindsight, just very sad.

Jacob uses a combination of drawings and photography to tell her story, which also worked really well for me. She combines this style with some really sweet and funny dialogue, especially between Mira and her son. I love how the book manages to talk about really serious and important issues, but is also full of heartwarming and hilarious moments. Mira getting stoned with her Dad cracked me up.

A wonderful memoir and a quick read. I think I've made this obvious, but note that the book contains racism, Islamophobia and drug use.

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Aug 08, 2018 Celeste Ng added it

GOOD TALK isn’t just Mira Jacobs's personal story: it also illuminates the increasingly fractured world we live in. By turns hilarious and heart-rending, it plunges fearlessly into the murky gray areas of race and family, of struggling to find common ground, of trying to talk to our children and help them make sense of it all. It's exactly the book America needs at this moment. ...more

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Oct 11, 2019 Julie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: e-book, 2019, overdrive, non-fiction, comics-manga, memoir

Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversation by Mira Jacobs is a 2019 One World publication.

Thought provoking, humorous, deeply revealing, and heart wrenching

A new- found interest in graphic novels led me to this book originally. When I started reading this book, I had no idea I was about to have my emotions put through the wringer. Despite the raw feelings exposed in this novel, I can’t stress how important I think the book is. All Americans should give this book a try, because so many people are too Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversation by Mira Jacobs is a 2019 One World publication.

Thought provoking, humorous, deeply revealing, and heart wrenching

A new- found interest in graphic novels led me to this book originally. When I started reading this book, I had no idea I was about to have my emotions put through the wringer. Despite the raw feelings exposed in this novel, I can’t stress how important I think the book is. All Americans should give this book a try, because so many people are too squeamish to have these tough discussions, and I think this book could help promote understanding and healing.

Mira Jacob’s six year old son begins asking his mother some pointed and blunt questions about skin tone, race, and other situations in his life, prompting Mira to think of the conflicted messages she received while growing up, while allowing a few pent up frustrations to surface, as she ponders the best way to address her son’s questions.

For regular readers of graphic novels, the artwork might come as a bit of a surprise. The graphics consist of real photographs with superimposed artwork added in. The art is not eye popping, with well -drawn facial expressions or vivid colorization. In fact, to be blunt, the author used some of the same artwork in several photographs more than once, and the features are very plain. However, there is a method to the madness, and if one thinks about it, this is a more fitting approach, and is most assuredly done by design.

I truly appreciated the reality of this memoir. It is frank, raw, messy, and very honest. Often there are no pat answers and each person’s situation is unique. For Mira, she is an Indian with a darker complexion and her husband is Jewish. Her mixed- race son, Z, is quite perceptive, especially in our current political climate, and his questions prompt some uncomfortable conversations. This is a good thing, though. Mira doesn’t always know how to answer Z, something all parents can understand. Yet, when it comes to race and bigotry, explanations can be a bit tricky.

At times Mira can seem a little sharp, as her frustrations spill over causing a little friction in her marriage. But this is part of her journey, which in having these frank conversations with her son, friends, husband, extended family and others on the periphery of her life, she discovers certain truths about herself.

I had a good, heaving cry while reading this book. It truly made my heart hurt. Dear Mira, I do hope you know that many people, despite not living within the same set of circumstances as yourself, do very keenly feel your pain.
As serious as all this sounds, the book is markedly funny at times, and it is even cathartic in some ways. The title of the book is apt- This is indeed a “Good Talk”, one we all should consider taking part in.
A must read! ...more

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Apr 08, 2019 Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audiobook-favorite, favorite, favorite-audiobooks

Update... I'm back!! (2nd read).....physical book this time.
I can't say enough about this book!!!! After I listened to the Audiobook -- which I thought was BRILLIANT.... I ended up buying the physical -'graphic' book last week too.
Its AMAZING!!!!!
Mira Jacob outdid herself -A TRIPLE THREAT author, graphic artist, speaker: the storytelling of this MEMOIR, the graphics, READING her book -
I met Mira at a reading in Austin years ago (liked her very much) --read her first novel, "The Sleepwalker's Gu ...more

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Dec 06, 2019 Dave Schaafsma rated it it was amazing

Shelves: gn-race-ethnicity, books-loved-2019

“I'm supposed to be thankful for everything. Thank you for publishing me! Thank you for asking me to attend an event! Thank you for thanking me for writing characters you could relate to despite them being Indian! Thank you for saying you almost felt like they were just normal people! [...] Thank you for telling me you wish you had been brave enough to date the Indian girls in high school! Thank you for asking me about whether or not you should take a vacation to India! Thank you for telling me “I'm supposed to be thankful for everything. Thank you for publishing me! Thank you for asking me to attend an event! Thank you for thanking me for writing characters you could relate to despite them being Indian! Thank you for saying you almost felt like they were just normal people! [...] Thank you for telling me you wish you had been brave enough to date the Indian girls in high school! Thank you for asking me about whether or not you should take a vacation to India! Thank you for telling me that your Indian neighbor makes your hallway smell like curry! Thank you for apologizing for hating curry, like I am curry's mother!”

I love this book. Are you honestly sick of all the earnest and guilt-inducing books about race and/or need a few laughs and then might even still welcome a punch in the gut once again on the subject? You know, I picked up this book a couple times and put it down in spite of the general buzz in favor of it. Sometimes a book is just not right for you, or is the wrong time or place to read it. And then I picked it up again and read it through in almost one sitting and it’s one of the best books for me of the year. It’s a memoir that got put in the graphic novels category, but it’s really best described as a series of illustrated conversations—really, really good conversations, SO well-written, between Mira Jacobs (Indian-American, or East Indian, or South Asian), her Jewish husband, her (necessarily mixed-race 6-year-old son Z who is really the heart of the story, her parents, her parents-in-law, plenty of friends and several strangers, many of them tone-deaf with respect to the issue of race.

The book spans Jacob’s life, including her parents’s arranged marriage, their concern for her marrying someone non-Indian (as her husband’s family would have preferred her to be Jewish), her being disdained by some of her own family (and other Indians) for being too dark (yes, my second book on colorism in a single week, the first a picture book, Sulwe). It is sometimes wincingly painful to read but is mostly hilarious, including great kid questions Z asks her, a story about a woman who wants to hire her to write about her Founding Fathers family, her Daughters of the American Revolution award-winning essay, her attempts to get pot for her Dad as he suffers through cancer, and so on.

The dialogue is almost perfectly pitched on every page, just terrific. Good talk? Oh, it's better than that! It’s Great Talk. And oh my, yes, Jacobs can write, all the way through this:

“We think our hearts break only from endings - the love gone, the rooms empty, the future unhappening as we stand ready to step into it - but what about how they can shatter in the face of what is possible.”

If you are not already convinced, just read part of this note to her son and try to tell me you are not interested in this book:

“Once, before I had you, I saw you. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. I was pregnant and standing alone outside a party, and when you kicked, I shut my eyes and saw you on a beach we would arrive at almost five years later. You were facing the water and wearing your blue swimsuit and I knew, from the curve in your spine and the nut brown of your skin, that you were mine to protect like nothing else ever will be. So when you first started asking me hard questions, the ones about America and your place here, I wanted to find you the right answers - the kind that would make you feel good, welcome, and loved. I thought if I could just remember the country I'd been raised to believe in, the one I was sure I would eventually get to, I'd be able to get us back there.

Here is the thing, though, the real, true thing I still have trouble admitting: I can't protect you from everything. I can't protect you from becoming a brown man in America. I can't protect you from spending a lifetime caught between the beautiful dream of a diverse nation and the complicated reality of one.

Even now, just writing that down, I want to say something that will make it okay, or even make it make sense, but I can't.

And this is maybe the part I worry about the most, how the weight of that will twist you into someone you don't want to be, or worse, make you ashamed of your own heart. I hope you will remember that you have nothing to be ashamed of. I hope you will remember that your heart is a good one, and that your capacity to feel love, in all its complexity, is a gift.”

Because it spans her life thus far, it does touch on Bush, Obama and Trump presidencies and what they have meant for people of color. One of the most painful moments is when she sees that her parents-in-law are Trump supporters--I can relate a bit, as some of my sibs are Trump supporters, but I am a white guy, so the implications are somewhat different, (not that it's a competition for most wronged here)-- after she was invited to their dog's Bark Mitzvah (I know, funny, right?) and was mistaken for being a servant by some of her mother-in-law's friends which she--the mom-in-law--dismissed as not believable. Anyway, I know, you’re sick of all the Trump stuff, but I swear, you need to read it. Ouch-laughter stuff.

The illustrations are sort of like cut-out still life drawings, often pasted on photographs, depicting Jacobs and whoever she is talking to facing us, in tableaux-fashion, which sounds sort of stilted, I know, but even though many images are just pasted in again and again, I found the surface of them sort of ironic, understated and increasingly poignant in keeping with the humor/anguish. I don't see this as a "graphic memoir" as it is not comics, but who cares, it's still visually interesting. And the tone moves from that hilarity to raw anguish and back as we move through Trump American 2016. I love this book and so highly recommend it. ...more

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Apr 27, 2019 etherealfire rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Gutted. My heart breaks for our country and its completely unnecessary, self-inflicted wounds. My heart breaks for the damage we are doing to ourselves and each other. This is a must-read.

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Jan 10, 2020 Book Riot Community added it

Shelves: non-fiction, comics

If I had to pick one book that most honestly describes the reality of living in Trump’s America, it would be this one. In this gorgeous graphic memoir, Mira Jacob, an Indian American and the child of immigrants, relates the many hard conversations she has with her young biracial son before, during, and after Trump’s election. Woven throughout are stories of growing up, coming of age, and becoming a parent as a woman of color. Layered, funny, heartbreaking, full of urgency, anger, and hope, it’s ...more

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Sep 21, 2019 Matthew rated it liked it

Shelves: library, non-fiction, gr_awards_2019, 2019, graphic-novel, biography

I would like to start this review by saying that every once in a while I find a book that is completely not for me. I think that this book falls in that category. So keep in mind that this review is coming from someone that couldn't really connect to the story all that much.

Good Talk graphic novel version of conversations the author had as a child all the way through 2016. The conversations mainly deal with how race reflects relationships and how society views them. The setting is 100% big city. ...more

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Apr 28, 2019 Julie Ehlers rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Everyone.

Shelves: comics-and-cartoons, books-that-are-awesome, free-library

Ever since I read Mira Jacob's 2015 Buzzfeed article about her son's obsession with Michael Jackson and the questions it raised (and subsequently began following her excellent Instagram account, @goodtalkthanks), I have been desperate to read Good Talk. I waited impatiently for the book to (finally!) be released, for my library to obtain a copy, for the copy to make it to my branch. When it (finally!) arrived just in time for my staycation, I was ECSTATIC. My expectations couldn't have been high Ever since I read Mira Jacob's 2015 Buzzfeed article about her son's obsession with Michael Jackson and the questions it raised (and subsequently began following her excellent Instagram account, @goodtalkthanks), I have been desperate to read Good Talk. I waited impatiently for the book to (finally!) be released, for my library to obtain a copy, for the copy to make it to my branch. When it (finally!) arrived just in time for my staycation, I was ECSTATIC. My expectations couldn't have been higher, is what I'm saying. Good Talk met them all.

In some ways, it's surprising that Good Talk worked as well as it did. Jacob is an excellent artist, but (as in the excerpt I linked to), she mostly uses the same images over and over again against different backgrounds. Somehow, this never got tedious for me; in fact, it was oddly effective to get familiar with these images and see them recur. Beyond that, the book was funny and quick and did not hesitate to ask hard questions and dive into uncomfortable situations and dilemmas regarding race. It all felt very real and couldn't be more timely; the parts regarding Trump's election felt so authentic, and authentically awkward, that it's hard to imagine the reader who wouldn't relate in some way.

Based on the Buzzfeed article, I'd expected Good Talk to be centered around Jacob's conversations with her son, but although those of course make up a significant portion of the book, this is actually a memoir of Jacob's entire life and career thus far, including her search for love, her beginnings as a writer, and the publication of her first novel. I was a bit surprised by this initially, but quickly realized this background not only made for a fuller reading experience but actually contributed to its main themes. Jacob's East Indian heritage, of course, is an inextricable part of her experience as an American, and these experiences, for better or worse, provide some of the book's most effective teaching moments.

Which may make the book sound grim. But somehow it's not grim. Well, it's not the most optimistic book out there, that's true. But it's a great read, everything I could have hoped for, and a valuable contribution to the conversations that have gained urgency across the U.S. and across the world in the past few years. I recommend it to everyone. ...more

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May 31, 2019 Dianne rated it it was amazing

Shelves: best-of-2019

I loved this graphic novel! It’s the author’s story of growing up as a person of color in the United States, with a special focus on raising her young son in a post 9-11 New York City. Her son has a lot of questions about race and her best attempts to answer them honestly are poignant.

Jacob uses an unusual visual format for her stories. She draws simple black and white portraits of herself and the main characters at certain ages and reuses those portraits repeatedly as dialogue occurs over the y ...more

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Jul 31, 2020 Larry H rated it it was amazing

Packing an emotional, powerful punch, Mira Jacob's Good Talk is a great read!!

The book is subtitled A Memoir in Conversations , and that’s exactly what it is. It recounts conversations that the author had at different points in her life with her husband, family, friends, her young son, people she dated, even strangers, about race, identity, prejudice, racism, and love.

Most of the conversations with her son occur in the lead-up to the 2016 election, as she tries to help an eight-year-old ...more

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Sep 27, 2021 Brandice rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

My only regret about Good Talk is that I waited so long to read it. I’ve heard great things about the book since it came out in 2018 — It’s relevant, for better or worse, and has a welcome dose of humor throughout the book.

Good Talk is a memoir in conversations and a graphic novel. Many of Mira’s conversations are with her son, Z, who is 6 years old in the opening of the book. He’s learning about the world, about race — his mom is Indian and his dad is white — and about his white grandparents w ...more

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Jul 20, 2019 Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨ Campbell rated it really liked it

Shelves: lgbtqia-library, mem-wars, nonfiction, les-arcs-de-triomphes, poc-nonfic, graphic-nouvelle

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I wasn't really sure what to expect with this one but I ended up liking it a lot. GOOD TALK is a graphic novel memoir told in conversations. The art is static, set against photographs or hyper-realistic drawings, and at first this kind of felt lazy to me and I wasn't sure I liked this style, but I realized it was probably so the art wouldn't be a distraction from the text panels since that was the important stuff. The conversations are ...more

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May 31, 2021 Traci Thomas rated it it was amazing

So good. The balance of vulnerability and humor in this one is spot on. The aesthetic is so cool. The story is so spot on for the feelings of 2016 and the fear of Trumpism and all the anxiety of that election for folks who aren’t white. Mira Jacob is a master of tone and style.

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Mar 17, 2019 Jill rated it it was amazing

First a confession: from the advance blurb (“Who taught Michael Jackson to dance?” “Are white people afraid of brown people?”), my expectations for this book weren’t high. I suspected it might be another one of those feel-good, politically-correct books. But I loved Mira Jacob’s first novel, The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing, and on a whim, I decided to take a chance.

And – wow! This is the real deal, raw, wrenching, funny, fearless, and honest. Mira Jacob is an American of Indian descent, marri First a confession: from the advance blurb (“Who taught Michael Jackson to dance?” “Are white people afraid of brown people?”), my expectations for this book weren’t high. I suspected it might be another one of those feel-good, politically-correct books. But I loved Mira Jacob’s first novel, The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing, and on a whim, I decided to take a chance.

And – wow! This is the real deal, raw, wrenching, funny, fearless, and honest. Mira Jacob is an American of Indian descent, married to a Jewish man, and their young son, referred to here as Z, is an inquisitive boy who inherited her dark skin and her poignant need to understand the “lifetime caught between beautiful dream of a diverse nation and the complicated reality of one.”

Using her own illustrations to tell her story, Mira Jacobs walks us through pivotal moments in her back history. She recalls winning an essay contest, sponsored by the DAR, as a child. However, Mira wasn’t quite the “American” the DAR envisioned in granting her the prize. She highlights the “tragedy of my skin color” on visits back to India, where the fairer someone is, the more value they seem to have. She writes humorously about a Boston radio producer who wishes to interview her after her book is published but insists on pigeonholing her characters into some “Asian Indians” that his audience can fully understand.

But to me, the most wrenching part was the schism that occurs when her mother-in-law (who Mira loved enough to instantly call “mom”), decides to vote for Donald Trump at the same time that she and her young son are petrified of the racist undertones of his campaign. She asks her husband, “How can they see what this guy is about and support him! He’s stoking religious hatred! Racial hatred! How do they think this is going to affect our lives?” When her husband assures her that they love her, she answers, “You think they’d feel the same about me if I voted for an anti-Semite?” He answers, “They don’t see it that way.” She answers, “But it is that way.

If you are an apologist for Donald Trump, you’d best skip this book. But if you believe, as the author does, that our growth potential is tied into being “the kind of person who ass questions about who you are why things are the way they are, and what we could do to make them better,” then this is the book for you. ...more

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Aug 19, 2020 Jenny Lawson rated it it was amazing

So good. Read it and immediately gave it to my daughter to read.

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Feb 05, 2022 Rincey rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, poc-author

I knew I would like this book, I just was not ready for it to emotionally wreck me.

Watch my review for more thoughts: https://youtu.be/c2iFCCBsHAo ...more

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Jun 18, 2019 Vanessa rated it it was amazing

I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this graphic novel as much as I did. But boy did this book pack an unexpected punch! Written in conversation style, it’s a completely unique and interesting perspective on race and immigration during this current crazy political climate and the difficult questions that only a young kid knows how to ask. It makes you mad that these conversations are even necessary! But I enjoyed the interactions between Mira and her son. There is humour in between the seriousness of th ...more

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Mar 11, 2021 Holly rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, 2021-read, graphic-novel

I love this graphic novelization of snippets of the author's life, told through both drawings and photos combined into a unique, yet still comic book, style. The content of the conversations, mainly regarding race/politics/gender/sex/family, is something we can all benefit from 'listening' to. Recommended. ...more

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Oct 07, 2021 luce ❀ wishfully reading ❀ rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2021-reviews, overdrive-audiobooks, nonfiction, poignant-reads, biographies-and-memoirs, iii-favourites

❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀

Mira Jacob's Good Talk is a small gem of a memoir. Jacob combines different media to discuss a number of issues and topics. Jacob transports to the page the difficult conversations she’s had with her son about race, while also recounting her own experiences growing up as a first-generation Indian-American.

Much of Good Talk takes place against the 2016 election, which doesn’t necessarily make for easy or enjoyable reading material, especial ❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀

Mira Jacob's Good Talk is a small gem of a memoir. Jacob combines different media to discuss a number of issues and topics. Jacob transports to the page the difficult conversations she’s had with her son about race, while also recounting her own experiences growing up as a first-generation Indian-American.

Much of Good Talk takes place against the 2016 election, which doesn’t necessarily make for easy or enjoyable reading material, especially when we discover that her white in-laws are Trump supporters. Jacob struggles to ‘gloss’ over their political stance, especially when her son begins asking difficult questions about Trump and racism. While her husband, who is white, also struggles to make sense of his parents’ behaviour he does at times minimise Jacob’s experiences with discrimination and racism (chalking these episodes to misunderstandings or claiming that supporting someone who is openly racist and misogynistic doesn’t mean you are those things too). While many of the conversations that are depicted in Good Talk have to do with America (or at least view these topics through an American lens) certain, Jacob does also touch upon colorism in India.
In addition to discussing Trump and 9/11, Jacob also gives us insight into her private life, from talking about her family to her experiences moving in predominantly white spaces and to the everyday microaggression that results from that. The dialogues populating this memoir always rang true to life, so much so, that I felt as if I was truly listening to people talking. While Jacob does discuss serious topics, such as racism, sexism, islamophobia, discrimination, colorism, she often injects humor in these discussions. I especially loved her talks with her son and her parents. I’d happily revisit this and I’m looking forward to reading more from Jacob.
Candid, thought-provoking, and ultimately moving Good Talk is a quick read that is a must-read. ...more

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Jun 16, 2019 Lori Gottlieb rated it it was amazing

One perk of writing a book is that you get to meet other authors while on tour. I had the pleasure of doing a reading with Mira Jacobs at The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. I'd heard of her book but hadn't yet read it, and after she shared it with the audience (projecting the illustrations and reading the text), I immediately bought a copy (and--again, perk!--got it signed). I was blown away by how inventive and brilliant this memoir is. I've never read anything quite like it. It's heartbreakin ...more

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Oct 10, 2020 Lisa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2020-favorites

Jacobs intimately invites the reader into her life and family with this wonderful book. I often don't know where to rest my eyes with graphic novels/memoirs but that is not a problem here. The book has just one or two colorful illustrations per page. Jacobs guides the reader through difficult issues - race, parenting, division within families, the current political landscape. Funny and urgent and powerful. Read it! ...more

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Mar 30, 2022 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read2022, biography-memoir, graphic-novels-or-comics

I've had this book on my TBR forever and finally got it from the library. I didn't really even know what it was about and went in cold. Mira Jacob writes about what it is like to be brown (for her, Indian with darker skin than her other family members) in the America post 9/11 up through Trump's election win. Not only that but married to a Jewish (white) man whose parents refuse to see the harm in voting for Trump, and mother of a young mixed race boy with Questions.

What I love is her very frank ...more

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Sep 08, 2019 Dov Zeller rated it it was amazing

Shelves: art, graphics-comics, graphic-memoir, memoirific, existential-pain-and-angst

It's been so long since I've written a GR review. I just kind of got out of the habit (it can take such effort--it's a lot of work to review books. And for a time my GR wasn't loading on my computer and I fell out of the habit of being on here, and I never really got back into the habit of reading and writing reviews as I once did. Perhaps that will shift. In any case...I really wanted to say a few words about this book.)

Good Talk is brilliant and beautiful and messy and captivating and heart-br It's been so long since I've written a GR review. I just kind of got out of the habit (it can take such effort--it's a lot of work to review books. And for a time my GR wasn't loading on my computer and I fell out of the habit of being on here, and I never really got back into the habit of reading and writing reviews as I once did. Perhaps that will shift. In any case...I really wanted to say a few words about this book.)

Good Talk is brilliant and beautiful and messy and captivating and heart-breaking and funny and in its way, perfect. If I were to recommend one book that I've read over the last couple years there's a very good chance it would be this book.

(I'm not terribly decisive. So that's probably not the best set-up--ONE book out of how many. I mean, there are so many kinds of books, and I've enjoyed so many books in such different ways because they are each their own little beast. But wow wow wow Mira Jacob. This book is stellar. She is one of those authors I wish I had the opportunity to meet.)

The form and style is quite unique. Jacob uses photographs and images that are kind of like paper cut-outs to tell the story of trying to find ways of engaging with her son's many questions, his profound and and often painful questions and at times harrowing observations. Here is a quote from the very beginning of the book (I am listening to the sample audio clip on Audible):
Mira: The trouble began when my six year old son, Z, became obsessed with Michael Jackson.
Z: What is obsessed?
Mira: Like, into.
Z: Really really into?
Mira: Yes
Z: I'm obsessed.
Mira as narrator. "Six year old plus Michael Jackson obsession equals a lot of questions."

And the questions are, they are, they are so rich and vivid with meaning.

Jacob uses this as a starting point and moves around, exploring many places where her adulthood meets her childhood. She explores her experience as the child of immigrants (her family is from India), her struggle to navigate all the different worlds she belongs to and that also feel alien to her and that often come into conflict with each other (school, home; U.S., India). It is painful, complex stuff. But there are also ways the different contexts of her life offer her perspectives that enrich her sense of possibility in terms of how she might relate to and define herself.

The book is about questions of belonging. It's is a coming of age story many times over. It's about being a lover, a writer, a mother, a friend. About her marriage and her relationship with her parents-in-law (so much grief and joyousness and terrible frustration tangled up with these relationships). It's a kind of odyssey with something of what I liked to think of as a "Greek chorus" from ancient tragedy (in the from of three of her friends who offered excellent commentary here and there). The book moves through time pretty quickly and jumps around quite a bit, but at its core I think it stays focused on the messiness of being human, of loving other humans, of setting boundaries and also making compromises, and how hard it is to make decisions about how to approach or whether to step away from certain relationships--because there is often no "right' or easy answer. And it's about learning to love oneself.

Given that twice now I've had to send the book back to the library before managing to write a review, this is the best I can do. I don't have it in front of me. Some day I do hope to buy it. For myself and lots of my friends. ...more

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Apr 08, 2019 Jessica Woodbury rated it really liked it

Shelves: graphic-novels-comics, nonfiction, memoir, best-2019-arcs, authors-of-color

It is amazing to me how much Jacob fits into this book, how much it manages to contain, and how much it says not just about Jacob herself but about the present moment we live in. This is not just a book about raising a precocious biracial child in a world that treats his two parents very differently, that is just an entry point for Jacob to examine all the different parts of her life where these difficult issues have come up.

The parental anxiety factor here is high and I felt it really deeply. It is amazing to me how much Jacob fits into this book, how much it manages to contain, and how much it says not just about Jacob herself but about the present moment we live in. This is not just a book about raising a precocious biracial child in a world that treats his two parents very differently, that is just an entry point for Jacob to examine all the different parts of her life where these difficult issues have come up.

The parental anxiety factor here is high and I felt it really deeply. My kids are close to the age of Jacob's son, and while they don't have his particular precocious awareness of the world, even if your child doesn't ask you these questions directly you still have to think about how to have conversations with your kids about things your parents may have never talked about with you.

Jacob jumps through time to her own childhood in mostly-white Albuquerque: the colorism of her Indian relatives, her own lack of awareness and built-in biases; her adulthood in Brooklyn: the fears of 9/11, her frustration with her family's desire that she marry a certain kind of Indian man, her work as a writer, and parenthood. There are all kinds of small stories but they meld together to make something really meaningful and resonant. The slow pace of writing and publishing means we still don't have many books that look at the anxieties of the Trump era, Jacob's does it so effectively, capturing her own fears, the often-unusual worries of her son, and the contrast between those and her white husband's family.

I sped through this in one tearful sitting. I really enjoyed her previous novel and I admit to being a little hesitant about the style of this one. But after a few pages of getting used to it, I was quickly drawn in and found that the simplicity of the style made such a stark contrast to the complexity of the emotions Jacob taps into that it worked for me really, really well. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself that this is a book where you need to just trust. Even though I'd seen excerpts, it is the whole of it all together that really makes it work. ...more

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May 20, 2019 Kelly added it

Shelves: non-fiction, read-in-2019, audio-book, comics-graphic-novels-and-memoirs

One of the best audiobooks I've listened to in a long time -- I didn't even know this was a graphic memoir, since I went straight to audio for it, and I missed out on nothing by choosing that format over the print one. Performed by a full-cast, it was very much a series of conversations about race and growing up in the margins of America.

When Mira's son asked about being mixed race, it spurs a series of memoirs for Mira about growing up Indian-American and all of the macro and micro aggressions ...more

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Apr 07, 2019 Sahitya rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2019-read, graphic-novels, 4-star, non-fiction, 2020-read

I just stumbled upon this book on Twitter when the author Mira shared a couple of illustrations from the graphic novel about Indian aunties and I couldn’t stop laughing and I decided that I had to read it. However, I ended up not finding the graphic novel at my library and had to listen to the audiobook which turned out to be totally unexpected and wonderful in its own way.

This memoir is completely heartfelt, witty and hilarious while tackling very complex issues surrounding race in the America I just stumbled upon this book on Twitter when the author Mira shared a couple of illustrations from the graphic novel about Indian aunties and I couldn’t stop laughing and I decided that I had to read it. However, I ended up not finding the graphic novel at my library and had to listen to the audiobook which turned out to be totally unexpected and wonderful in its own way.

This memoir is completely heartfelt, witty and hilarious while tackling very complex issues surrounding race in the America of the current president. The author’s own growing up timeline felt familiar, irrespective of the fact that I grew up in India. The relationship she shared with her parents and relatives, their conversations and ideas and values all felt so relatable (not always in a good way though). When she talks about the colorism that she faced in India due to being darker toned than her parents and brother, it hit me very hard. Just like her, I too heard a lot growing up that my parents were going to have a tough time finding a guy for me because I wasn’t as fair as I used to be when I was a child. As a young well educated woman, I was constantly told I shouldn’t want to marry an equally highly educated man because neither was I very pretty nor was I rich enough to harbor such dreams. This whole idea of reducing a woman’s self worth to the color of her skin is still far too common in India even years after when the author’s own story takes place.

The other thing the author talks about is the othering she felt both while trying to date (as a bisexual woman of color) and as an aspiring author trying to make it. There are numerous occasions in the story where she encounters little statements or micro aggressions by white people, who are completely tone deaf and clueless as to how racist they come across. As an author, she has to explain to a radio producer that referring to her characters as Asian Indian instead of East Indian just so that Americans can understand it better is so darn ignorant. And all these little things just add up and go on and the author (like many other POC) doesn’t confront or argue with these people because that will not change anything. There is a frustration that is reflected in the author’s narration that I totally empathized with because it’s a reality for many of us.

And the most important and also the most difficult and heartbreaking parts of the book were her conversations with her six year old biracial son. He is an inquisitive little child always asking her lots of questions, which she wants to answer honestly - until he starts listening to the 2016 election campaign rhetoric on the news and wants to know if Trump hates him, if his white Jewish dad will have to give him and his mom up if Trump wins the election and has lots of questions about racism and prejudice and more other issues that affect him profoundly - she doesn’t know how to answer them all in a way he can understand, but can’t avoid them either because they will affect his daily life. When Mira has to explain to him that his Trump supporting republican grandparents still love him, he is truly confused and wants to beg them not to vote for him and it broke her heart along with mine. The line “sometimes the people who love you will choose a world that doesn’t” is still haunting me hours after finishing the book. While she spent the election night with her husband and their friends lamenting on the result (and also not feeling completely surprised by it), I was all alone in my home reeling with what I was seeing on tv - but the thoughts that were running through our head were the same. These conversations that she has with her kid and everything she is grappling with about her son’s future, are the same I think about when I envision having a kid who will probably be born American, but will ultimately always be defined by their skin color.

I have read in other reviews that the author’s illustration style is amazing but the full cast audio (with music and situational background score) is absolutely spectacular and I would highly recommend this format too. This book is very thought provoking and funny and also sad and I think POC readers will find some very relatable experiences in it. Thats not to say others won’t, but I feel people who have lived these experiences will have a unique appreciation for this book. ...more

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Aug 28, 2019 Carmel Hanes rated it really liked it

True confession: I have never before read a graphic novel. I didn't even know what one was until about three years ago. I never thought I'd want to read one. Then came a reading challenge where a graphic novel was required. Sigh.

Wait--surprise!

This was a delightful thing to read. Despite the fact it, again, discusses the ongoing racism, white privilege and discrimination churning in the underbelly of our culture. It takes us through the experience of a woman of color and the challenges she fac ...more

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Sep 16, 2020 David rated it really liked it

These were ubiquitous in my internet timeline, early comics appearing in Buzzfeed relating Mira Jacob's son's early obsession with Michael Jackson. It's in that low-fi, consumable, internet meme visual style that's immediately recognizable and dying to be shared. Jacob's paper cutouts look out at the reader in a stunned, apathetically imploring, semi-ironic way that immediately speaks to my tiny GenX heart. There was no way I wasn't going to eventually snatch this one up.

It's heartfelt, wry and ...more

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Mar 07, 2021 Olive Fellows (abookolive) rated it really liked it

Recommended to Olive by: Jill S

Shelves: graphic-nov, memoir

I received this book in a book exchange - you can hear my thoughts in a Booktube video! ...more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
Is this appropriate for a HS library?	5	23	13 hours, 26 min ago
GCC Reads: The Visuals	2	1	Apr 18, 2022 08:57AM
GCC Reads: Historical Events & Jacob's Personal Story	2	1	Apr 18, 2022 08:56AM
GCC Reads: Telling a Story Through Conversations	2	1	Mar 31, 2022 09:38AM
Challenge Corner: Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob -> Starting June 6th, 2021	14	6	Jun 11, 2021 04:09PM
Play Book Tag: [poll ballot] Good Talk \| Mira Jacob \| 4 stars	5	14	Feb 04, 2020 04:38AM

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About Mira Jacob

Mira Jacob

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I am the author and illustrator of Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations. My first novel, The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing, was a Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers pick, shortlisted for India’s Tata First Literature Award, and longlisted for the Brooklyn Literary Eagles Prize.

My writing and drawings have appeared in The New York Times, Electric Literature, Tin House, Literary Hub, Guernica, Vog ...more

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“Here is the thing, though, the real, true thing I still have trouble admitting: I can't protect you from everything...I can't protect you from spending a lifetime caught between the beautiful dream of a diverse nation and the complicated reality of one. I can't even protect you from the simple fact that sometimes, the people who love us will choose a world that doesn't.” — 20 likes

“There's a particular kind of close you get when you find someone you can trust in a space you don't.” — 17 likes

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