A review by haia_929
An Age of License by Lucy Knisley
4.0
This is a trimmed down version of my review, to view the full review visit The Book Ramble.
Lucy Knisley was invited to travel to Norway for a comic arts festival. She decided to make a bigger trip of it, stopping in to visit friends, new acquaintances, and lovers along the way. The trip leads her to some introspection on her life and career, which is relatable for everyone, young adults especially.
I really enjoyed this book, which surprised me because I wasn't such a fan of Knisley's Relish. I've always liked Knisley's art style, which is gorgeous. I found the story interesting, fun, sometimes a little heartbreakingly real for someone who is also in what is meant to be my "age of license", and beautiful.
The storytelling in An Age of License is done well. I found the transitions from piece to piece smooth for the most part, with only a few places where I felt jarred by the movement from one section of the story to another. I did find the pace a little quick, which was sometimes annoying. Knisley would introduce concepts, ideas, and stories that piqued my interest but she would simply pass them by without reflecting or sharing further, which made the book feel a little too quick for comfort sometimes. I felt like Knisley touched on a lot of really important subjects, like feeling disconnected, feeling like her life was moving forward, heartbreak, longing, which really helped me form a deep connection with the content of the book.
A lot of people have described this as the Eat, Pray, Love of our generation, I can definitely see where the comparison comes from as the journeys start from really similar places. I would probably say this, to me, felt a little like You Can't Get There From Here, because it had the same levels of introspection and dealt a lot with the tension of relationships, heartbreak, and love. These books are very different books, but had similar emotional/introspective moments for me.
I was also glad to she her deal with the idea of editing. She shared her life, but of course she has edited and censored it to some degree. I was glad to she her discuss this, and it was really excellent to think about how she made these decisions. Overall I was really quite pleased with the actual content of the story and how she told it.
The art in this book is the high point for me, as it often is. I absolutely love Knisley's style, and I always have even when I didn't enjoy the book itself. Knisley's style is clean, round, sort of cute looking. If I had a graphic memoir I would want it to look like An Age of License. The story is mostly told in these panels with sparse details, and just people with a little background, however there are some pages with lots of detail and lots going on. Those are my favourite, and I feel kind of glad to get them less often because they're like a treat. Same with the coloured pages, these are the absolute best thing in the book. I love the colours and the way she uses them so rarely, there's something really sweet about this to me.
I highly recommend this. It's probably not a perfect travelogue, but it's a very good book for introspection and exploration of the "age of license" we're meant to have. The art is beautiful and the story is moving. I just really loved this!
Lucy Knisley was invited to travel to Norway for a comic arts festival. She decided to make a bigger trip of it, stopping in to visit friends, new acquaintances, and lovers along the way. The trip leads her to some introspection on her life and career, which is relatable for everyone, young adults especially.
I really enjoyed this book, which surprised me because I wasn't such a fan of Knisley's Relish. I've always liked Knisley's art style, which is gorgeous. I found the story interesting, fun, sometimes a little heartbreakingly real for someone who is also in what is meant to be my "age of license", and beautiful.
The storytelling in An Age of License is done well. I found the transitions from piece to piece smooth for the most part, with only a few places where I felt jarred by the movement from one section of the story to another. I did find the pace a little quick, which was sometimes annoying. Knisley would introduce concepts, ideas, and stories that piqued my interest but she would simply pass them by without reflecting or sharing further, which made the book feel a little too quick for comfort sometimes. I felt like Knisley touched on a lot of really important subjects, like feeling disconnected, feeling like her life was moving forward, heartbreak, longing, which really helped me form a deep connection with the content of the book.
A lot of people have described this as the Eat, Pray, Love of our generation, I can definitely see where the comparison comes from as the journeys start from really similar places. I would probably say this, to me, felt a little like You Can't Get There From Here, because it had the same levels of introspection and dealt a lot with the tension of relationships, heartbreak, and love. These books are very different books, but had similar emotional/introspective moments for me.
I was also glad to she her deal with the idea of editing. She shared her life, but of course she has edited and censored it to some degree. I was glad to she her discuss this, and it was really excellent to think about how she made these decisions. Overall I was really quite pleased with the actual content of the story and how she told it.
The art in this book is the high point for me, as it often is. I absolutely love Knisley's style, and I always have even when I didn't enjoy the book itself. Knisley's style is clean, round, sort of cute looking. If I had a graphic memoir I would want it to look like An Age of License. The story is mostly told in these panels with sparse details, and just people with a little background, however there are some pages with lots of detail and lots going on. Those are my favourite, and I feel kind of glad to get them less often because they're like a treat. Same with the coloured pages, these are the absolute best thing in the book. I love the colours and the way she uses them so rarely, there's something really sweet about this to me.
I highly recommend this. It's probably not a perfect travelogue, but it's a very good book for introspection and exploration of the "age of license" we're meant to have. The art is beautiful and the story is moving. I just really loved this!