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What Members Thought
The black-and-white drawings are lovely. I love the bittersweet nostalgia, the reflection on a childhood best forgotten, a faith gone awry. Sure, you can criticise Craig Thompson for being a little formulaic in his references to his first love (a boy and girl sitting in a tree) but one can see how his loneliness could have led him to seek solace in what to the rest of more sophisticated society may be cliches.
More than the romance, it is the back-stories of siblings and parent-child, even husban ...more
More than the romance, it is the back-stories of siblings and parent-child, even husban ...more
This was compelling, but ultimately kind of uninteresting, unless you're Craig Thompson.
The most moving part was one of the last lines:
The art is excellent.
It's a very personal memoir, not what I was expecting, and I'm left with the concern that Thompson still isn't comfortable with himself, he still struggles to accept joy.
And I really wanted to know ...more
The most moving part was one of the last lines:
[Walking alone in fresh snow] ... how satisfying it is to leave a mark on a blank surface. To make a map of my movement -- no matter how temporary.
The art is excellent.
It's a very personal memoir, not what I was expecting, and I'm left with the concern that Thompson still isn't comfortable with himself, he still struggles to accept joy.
And I really wanted to know ...more
A gorgeous visual take on first love. Coming-of-age story that captures the terribly wonderful leadup to the first (important) kiss, the struggles of identity set among the backdrop of family dramas and quiet defeats, and the way people inevitably find swatches of beauty in even the most frozen landscape. The "outcast loner" genre of graphic novels appears to have a solid firmhold, but the way Thompson was able to interweave stories from his childhood into the all-consuming narrative teenage lif
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Really liked the art, but so much build-up of the narrator's Christianity for the 1st 500 pages and then the most interesting part of the book, detailing his transformation (the loss of faith) is summarized? Boo!
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Perhaps this is a new trend, the graphic novel (or, in Craig Thompson’s case, the illustrated novel) which is really just a seeming semi-autobiographic tale of a difficult childhood (perhaps with over- or under-tones of sexual abuse). Perhaps it is easier to tell in this form? I suspect that this is actually not the case. I suspect that in both Bechdel’s and Thompson’s case they are expressing in the art form that comes naturally to them. Perhaps what is truly noteworthy here (and not at all new
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Before starting on this book, I was aware that there would be a lot of sentimentality from all the reviews I skimmed, so I was skeptical, but the end of the first chapter did make my eyes water, haha. The book is thick but quick to finish. I liked the scenes between Craig and his brother Phil best. The parts with Raina are good if you take out the "poetic language" he uses to describe her. I might have given this five stars if I read this in high school.
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Another illustrated novel that I really enjoyed. I read it in two sittings, and while doing dishes between the two sittings, I couldn't stop thinking about the characters. In the few illustrated novels I've read, I've found that I instantly love the characters, maybe because you can see them and their surroundings right away, I'm not really sure. The story was really well developed and it was just a beautiful experience.
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Apr 23, 2011
Rebecca
marked it as to-read
Oct 02, 2011
Katy
marked it as to-read
Apr 02, 2015
Kristen Iworsky
marked it as to-read
Jan 17, 2016
Jocelyn
marked it as to-read
Sep 08, 2017
Andy Plonka
marked it as to-read
May 16, 2020
Julie
marked it as to-read
Aug 14, 2020
superawesomekt
marked it as bibliocurious
Feb 05, 2021
J
marked it as to-read
