[Saturday Reads] Graphic Memoirs by Female Writers

SaturdayReads

Fats here.

Every Saturday we hope to share with you our thoughts on reading and books. We thought that it would be good practice to reflect on our reading lives and our thoughts about reading in general. While on occasion, we would feature a few books in keeping with this, there would be a few posts where we will just write about our thoughts on read-alouds, libraries, reading journals, upcoming literary conferences, books that we are excited about, and just book love miscellany in general.

Check out these graphic memoirs written by female authors. All books were borrowed from the CLEVNET library system. Cover photos and sample pages were downloaded online.

1. Spinning by Tillie Walden (2017) — United States

“For ten years, figure skating was Tillie Walden’s life. She woke before dawn for morning lessons, went straight to group practice after school, and spent weekends competing in glitter and tights. It was a central piece of her identity, her safe haven from the stress of school, bullies, and family. But over time, as she switched schools, got into art, and fell in love with her first girlfriend, she began to question how the close-minded world of figure skating fit in with the rest of her life.”

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2. Honor Girl by Maggie Thrash (2015) — United States

“Maggie is fifteen and has spent basically every summer of her life at the one-hundred-year-old Camp Bellflower for Girls, set deep in the heart of Appalachia. She’s from Atlanta, she’s never kissed a guy, she’s into the Backstreet Boys in a really deep way, and her long summer days are full of a pleasant, peaceful sort of nothing. Until one confounding moment. After a split second of innocent physical contact during a lice inspection, Maggie falls into gut-twisting love with Erin, an older, wiser, and, most surprising of all (at least to Maggie), female counselor.”

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3. Nylon Road by Parsua Bashi (2006) — Switzerland

“In the tradition of graphic memoirs such as Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, comes the story of a young Iranian woman’s struggles with growing up under Shiite Law, her journey into adulthood, and the daughter whom she had to leave behind when she left Iran. Nylon Road is a window into the soul of a culture that we are still struggling to understand. Beautifully told, poignant, this is a powerful work about the necessity of freedom.”

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4. The Story of My Tits by Jennifer Hayden (2015) — United States

“When Jennifer Hayden was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 43, she realized that her tits told a story. Across a lifetime, they’d held so many meanings: hope and fear, pride and embarrassment, life and death. And then they were gone. Now, their story has become a way of understanding her story: a journey from the innocence of youth to the chaos of adulthood, through her mother’s mastectomy, her father’s mistress, her husband’s music, and the endlessly evolving definition of family.”

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