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What Members Thought
I love Bechdel, and I love her commitment to the graphic memoir. Are You My Mother manages to feel much more personal than Fun Home did. She removes so much of the arm's distance she used (to great effect) in that book and really wallows in herself here.
I can see how other readers (probably including Bechdel's own featured Mother) might might find that kind of self examination dull to read - but I thought it was fascinating. It also manages to feel much more honest than most of the memoirs comi ...more
I can see how other readers (probably including Bechdel's own featured Mother) might might find that kind of self examination dull to read - but I thought it was fascinating. It also manages to feel much more honest than most of the memoirs comi ...more
Dense&Intense and very very very specific! I inhaled a bunch of interviews and reviews about this book, so my excitement was a little bit off the chain, to the point I went to three bookstores and bought it in hardcover. A good tonic for the simplistic idea of "if I were JUST a lesbian, I would have NO. EMOTIONAL. DRAMA!" Lie. Either I read it too fast or it's just the nature of the book, but I found myself to be short tempered and definitely mad about my childhood. Cue some overreactions to "wh
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Hmm. I definitely appreciated this book--I almost always love painful honesty, and that's pretty much Alison Bechdel's jam. There's a lot of layers here, like there were in Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, which I loved. I think..... hmm. Hm. A LOT of this book was rehashing Alison Bechdel's therapy sessions, which does make for an interesting confessional vibe, but which can also get kind of draggy? I had to read this in slow, thoughtful chunks. Worth the effort.
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I wanted Fun Home again, but Fun Home this is not. That's okay. It's my fault for wanting something that cannot be more than once. Lots of good stuff here, but also some really dense psychoanalytic material that made me feel like I needed to take another graduate class to really figure out. I guess I felt like it was a bit too academic at times. And yet. I need to read it again and talk to someone about it to completely get my head around it.
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I really enjoyed the experience of this, but it’s so in the weeds of psychoanalysis that I never felt a deep enough a connection to it. I think Bechdel has made this book as accessible as psychoanalysis will allow it, but I always felt a pretty big barrier between me and the characters.
This is a raw, biting, thoughtful, honest story and a perfect followup to Fun Home. Alison Bechdel has a strong capacity for self-reflection, for family dynamic and relationship analysis, and she somehow has the ability to make everyone not look bad even though she lays bare many flaws and imperfections and ugliness. Might resonate especially with daughters who don't have great, solid, warm, open relationships with their mothers, especially daughters who are artists and or lesbians, but anyone w
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An interesting graphic novel telling the story of Alison Bechdel's relationship with her mother, of Bechdel's art, of her romantic relationships, and her therapy journey. ...more
3.5 Stars for this graphic novel memoir. It's very introspective and meta. For a good portion of this book she writes about the process of writing this book. ...more
I wasn't able to get into this one like I was able to get into the one about her father.
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I think it would be exhausting to be a Bechdel, or dating/married to one.
Jan 06, 2012
Ehrrin
marked it as to-read
Jun 24, 2012
Jennie
marked it as to-read
Aug 14, 2012
Kai
marked it as to-read
Jul 26, 2015
Leah Fitzgerald
marked it as to-read
Oct 03, 2015
Anna West
added it
Dec 01, 2017
Laura
marked it as to-read
Feb 19, 2021
Lauren
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