A review by kstookley
The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel

5.0

My favorite book I have read this year so far. Alison Bechdel's memoir through exercise is fun, relatable, and insightful. She shows astute knowledge in the way that she links her relationship to her body to the relationship she has with the people and world around her, but it never feels heavy or dense. The way she talks about her body, too, is refreshing for a female writer in particular. She is not obsessed with it as a vessel of trauma or as a bauble to show off, but primarily talks about it in terms of what it can do. The art in the book is also her best yet-- the risks she takes truly pay off. The weakest parts of her story are her tiebacks to authors of yore. In particular, I found myself skimming the sections about the Romantic writers. Nevertheless, these sections do not detract from the memoir as a whole. Would recommend to anyone who has a body and who has thought about how and why they use and abuse it.