silver_valkyrie_reads's review
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent and Miscarriage
Moderate: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Medical content, Child abuse, and Dementia
interlunar's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Dementia
good_names_dont_exist's review against another edition
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Dementia, Grief, and Death of parent
Moderate: Excrement, Vomit, and Chronic illness
Minor: Child death and Body horror
melissa_h's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
mercerhanau's review against another edition
5.0
Fascinating, funny, vulnerable, heartbreaking, and healing. This graphic novel helped me better understand older relatives going through this experience—both the nonagenarians and those in Roz’s caretaking role. So many complicated feelings and family dynamics. There were pieces that felt familiar and uncanny for my family, and I imagine different parts will resonate for anyone who reads it. I shed a few tears, but also laughed.
3/15/2023 addition:
I just read some 1-star reviews and it's so interesting that the majority boil down to "this made me sad!" or "I personally can't relate" or "sounds like a miserable situation!" Well yeah. Grief and trauma and anxiety over the physical and mental decline of loved ones (even with complex relationships) are all 1-star experiences. Roz Chast manages to make meaningful art out of those nuanced, horrible, sometimes bittersweet* pieces of being human. I stand by my five stars.
*[b:Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole|58734811|Bittersweet How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole|Susan Cain|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1637095772l/58734811._SY75_.jpg|92445668]
3/15/2023 addition:
I just read some 1-star reviews and it's so interesting that the majority boil down to "this made me sad!" or "I personally can't relate" or "sounds like a miserable situation!" Well yeah. Grief and trauma and anxiety over the physical and mental decline of loved ones (even with complex relationships) are all 1-star experiences. Roz Chast manages to make meaningful art out of those nuanced, horrible, sometimes bittersweet* pieces of being human. I stand by my five stars.
*[b:Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole|58734811|Bittersweet How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole|Susan Cain|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1637095772l/58734811._SY75_.jpg|92445668]
superqs's review against another edition
5.0
I was looking for a delightful read, and though this hilarious cartoon would do. I was totally wrong… this book is anything but light-weighted. It’s heavy and profound. It is about the end of life, the strenuous last mile of the whole journey, the phase that you are alive but not living, the moment that you don’t want to think about but will come eventually. It’s about watching your loved ones slips away from you hopelessly and irreversibly, the love and apologies that we never said, the differences that are too late to understand. It’s about letting go, but also memorizing.
nakedsushi's review against another edition
4.0
A poignant series of comics about Chast's aging parents and their process of dying.
dkragick's review against another edition
5.0
I really disliked this book. It was so well done. Not too happy with the author, either. She was amazingly honest. No one wants to be where this family was - but most of us will get there. Reading about their struggles was way too real.