Pub Date 02 Apr 2024
Andrews McMeel Publishing
Comics, Graphic Novels, Manga | Entertainment
My review
4 stars
This is quite short, like a collection of little rhyming short episodes that resemble a Dr. Seuss for adults.
IT'S ABSOLUTELY RELATABLE. Pardon my screaming, but it applies to me in every possible way and to the next one as well. Dead tired, going to bed and the brain decided to party and have its own activity schedule? Yes. Creating something artistic, quitting, then finding it amazing then hating it next? Yes. Writing that email... you know you've done it. It's short, but it's very funny and hits the nail on the head. I preferred it didn't rhyme, but added humor to it.
Thank you Netgalley and publisher for this e-arc-copy.
Find it on Amazon or your favorite story.
Adult Graphic Novel - Literary Fiction
My review
4.5
After her grandmother's death, she learns the truth of why her grandmother had such a bitter life and was so hard to get close to. The artwork is colorful and has a great art style. I love how the artist works the text against large forms and shapes but also small vibrant busy details.
I couldn't stop reading. It just takes us on a journey into the past of a woman who dies alone.
We explore how hard and filled with prejudice the families were (and still are) to rape, being queer, trying to survive in another country, and family relationships.
Visit the official website for more titles by Fantagraphics.
From the Publisher:
In this moving family saga, a teenage woman uncovers the hushed history of sexual violence that shattered her grandmother’s life.
Buenos Aires, 2001. When Vilma passes away, few friends and relatives care to attend her funeral. This conspicuous absence sparks the curiosity of her 19-year-old granddaughter, Rocio, who moves into the house her grandmother has left her. In this home haunted by memories, she delves into Vilma’s life and uncovers a family history shrouded in tragedy.
Moving seamlessly between Italy at the beginning of the 20th century and Argentina at the beginning of the 21st century, Mothballs draws a poetic comparison between the lives of grandmother and granddaughter. Both women are strong-willed and ambitious, eager to forge their own way, but face pressure from family and society to conform to the paths set for them. At a crossroads in her own life, knowing well the isolation her grandmother felt, Rocio seeks to break free from the chain of history. Mothballs chronicles fraught family dynamics with rare nuance and sensitivity, sprinkling in moments of tenderness, vulnerability, and whimsy amidst the pain, a showcase of tour de force cartooning that marks Sole Otero as a major talent in the global comics scene.