Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - Ystäväni Dahmer

Review:
This was a disturbing portrait of the notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer as a middle and high school kid in the 70s. He lived with combative parents, and his mother also suffered from mental illness. There was no intervention made by any adult at either school Dahmer attended, but it was also a different time.
Dahmer had few friends, and he lived a very isolated life. He became an alcoholic in high school.

The drawings evoke his robotic and wooden personality as well as his dark inner thoughts.

This is an important read, especially for adults who work with kids, so that we can recognize the signs of mental illness, depression and alcoholism so interventions can happen, but there is no guarantee that these may have helped. This might also help kids to say something when they see something.

Read this if you enjoy true crime, criminal psychology, work with teens or tweens. See content warnings.

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evelynleigh's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative tense fast-paced

4.5

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mynameschrissy's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

5.0

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msorce's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

3.0

This is an interesting story and worth the read if you are interested in hearing an account of Dahmer's high school years. I'm not that into graphic novels, but this story was short and well suited for it.

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brookey8888's review against another edition

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dark informative mysterious sad fast-paced

3.25

I don’t know something about this doesn’t sit right with me. I know the author did his research but it feels like all of this is not his information like he only hung up with him like once. That being said I did learn some things because I’ve never really watched any of the TV shows or movies about it because it’s kind of weird to me. I don’t know the other style I also really don’t like at all to be honest. I would say if you wanna learn more maybe but I don’t know it just felt weird to me.

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moto1480's review against another edition

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dark sad medium-paced

4.0

My Friend Dahmer is an interesting real life story of Backderf's experiences growing up with Jeffrey Dahmer. It's well-written and quickly sucks you in. It would have been very easy for the author to pretend to have been closer to Dahmer than he was, but he's very clear about the high school friendship(?) that he had with him. The art is different and I'm not an huge fan of Backderf's style. It's sweaty MAD magazine-esque, if that makes sense.

While Backderf says repeatedly that he didn't write this to engender sympathy for Dahmer, you can't help but wonder what could have been if anyone was paying attention to him before he killed for the first time. I actually think this graphic novel is Backderf's way of coming to terms with being unable to do anything for and about Dahmer. I enjoyed this immensely, though the end ran out of steam.

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mjtal's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad slow-paced

2.0

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