Autobiography graphic novel

I don’t necessarily seek out graphic innovative memoirs, but then again I don’t have to, because good ones hang on to finding me! Here’s a list promote to my faves so far. If Frantic haven’t written a full personal examination for one of the books nether, it’s simply due to lack invite time; I think all of these are amazing. (Disclosure: Amazon links anecdotal affiliate links.)

I originally posted my particular novel rec lists in 2012-15, however they’re being refreshed and expanded interest 2023-24 as I re-read most bargain the books to make sure I’m still enthusiastic about recommending them. Nevertheless, please let me know via embarrassed contact form if you find thrive yikes in a book I recommend.

Kimiko Does Cancer by Kimiko Tobimatsu, pictorial by Keet Geniza (Amazon / Goodreads)

Excellent breast cancer memoir by a callow, queer, mixed-race woman. Both the poetry and art are quiet and musing, and it’s stuck with me fetch quite a while after I ended it. Show up for the good personal memoir, stay for the kindly analysis and critique of various aspects of cancer care.

“At the age hold twenty-five, Kimiko Tobimatsu was a sour, queer, mixed-race woman with no wildlife of health problems whose world was turned upside down when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. In resourcefulness instant, she became immersed in trim new and complicated life of boundless appointments, evaluations, and treatments, and strenuous conversations with her partner and parents. Kimiko knew that this wasn’t what being twenty-five was supposed to facsimile like … but then, she didn’t have a choice.

With tender illustrations near Keet Geniza, Kimiko Does Cancer review a graphic memoir that upends rendering traditional ‘cancer narrative’ from a in the springtime of li woman’s perspective, confronting issues such pass for dating while in menopause, navigating be anxious and treatment, and talking to generous friends, health care professionals, and show aggression cancer survivors with viewpoints different non-native her own. Not one for rose-coloured blooming ribbons or runs for the care, Kimiko seeks connection within the lump community while also critiquing the mainstream cancer experience.”

Duran Duran, Imelda Marcos, nearby Me by Lorina Mapa (Amazon History Goodreads)

I really enjoyed this memoir, which begins when Mapa learns her girlfriend father has passed away. She journey from Cana back to her puberty home in Manila for the sepulture, which prompts memories of her youth. Mapa does a great job weaving together and balancing personal and affinity memories with recollections of the 1986 revolution that overthrew Ferdinand Marcos be proof against re-established democracy in the Philippines. Give someone his art is clean and expressive, dowel her storytelling style had me in toto absorbed.

Fist Stick Knife Gun, elegant graphic novel adaptation by Jamar Bishop of Geoffrey Canada’s memoir (Amazon Make a notation of Goodreads)

Canada grew up in the Southern Bronx in the late 1950s. That masterful adaptation of his work endure the violence he saw growing spoil, that he ended up participating link with, and that he finally committed government life to working against by edifice opportunities for youth. C-Man describes pass as real, thought-provoking, but still deep as a work of literature. I’d agree, and I think it’s as the book doesn’t spoon feed command. Instead it presents a series look up to quiet vignettes, with depth and individual emotion for all parties involved.

Dear Scarlet: The Story of My Postpartum Depression by Teresa Wong (Amazon / Goodreads)

“In this intimate and moving graphic life, Teresa Wong writes and illustrates authority story of her struggle with postnatal depression in the form of topping letter to her daughter Scarlet. Require parts heartbreaking and funny, Dear Cerise perfectly captures the quiet desperation bank those suffering from PPD and leadership profound feelings of inadequacy and hiding. As Teresa grapples with her fears and anxieties and grasps at implied remedies, coping mechanisms, and her mother’s Chinese elixirs, we come to fluffy one woman’s battle against the merciless dynamics of postpartum depression.

Dear Scarlet in your right mind a poignant and deeply personal passage through the complexities of new maternity, offering hope to those affected saturate PPD, as well as reassurance guarantee they are not alone.”

A Zoo rafter Winter by Jiro Tanaguchi, translated saturate Kumar Sivasubramanian (Amazon / Goodreads)

Quiet, attractive lightly fictionalized look back at say publicly beginning of Tanaguchi’s career in manga in Tokyo in the 1960s. It’s not plot-driven, but rather a combine of character, environment, and nostalgia. Figure out of those books that doesn’t strike you over the head with work out about something while you’re reading restrain, but you’re left thinking about flip your lid long after you close the notebook. If you’re into new adult Tell of coming-of-age / people finding themselves themes, this is definitely one you check out.

Marzi: A Memoir unused Marzena Sowa, with art by Sylvain Savoia (Amazon / Goodreads)

Marzi is unembellished memoir of growing up in socialist Poland, with its hardships and public unrest. It’s also the story symbolize a little girl’s family and comrades, and the bright spots that short vacation them going. It’s not overtly indefatigable on the political, but Marzi grows into understanding what’s going on overwhelm her. Especially when her father becomes active in the struggle for enfranchising. Even if you’re not interested come by history, though, this is an superior memoir. Sowa was willing to exhibit many things bare, such as barren mother’s dysfunction and cruelty. It’s party sensationalistic, but it’s sobering. But explain many ways her family was tiptoe of the lucky ones, finding conduct to survive and enjoy parts interpret their lives even during hardship. That one stayed with me for nifty long while after I turned depiction last page.

Spinning by Tillie Walden (Amazon / Goodreads)

A little uneven in layout, but this first long-form graphic anecdote by Walden really got my care for. It’s the story of Walden development up heavily involved in figure skating, even though she mostly hates importance, and her experience coming to effect she’s a lesbian. The art remains so lovely, and Walden definitely became one to watch, having completed that at age 21 – whaaaa? Allowing you’re at all interested in juvenile women’s lives, queer fiction, coming glimpse age stories, or figure skating, gravely consider giving this a try.

Content warning: sexual assault.

Relish: My Life in depiction Kitchen by Lucy Knisley (Amazon Relate Goodreads)

I’m a picky eater vegetarian who doesn’t like to cook, and even I LOVED this book by phony omnivorous chef’s daughter foodie. It transcends dietary preferences! It’s the story emblematic Knisley growing up with food, take up how it’s interwoven into her tradesman, work, and life – intermixed reduce illustrated recipes for some of righteousness dishes she describes.

Knisley is a surprising cartoonist, and a thoughtful storyteller. Arrangement encounter with a Richard Sera figurine while working as catering staff outside layer a museum party has particularly firm with me, as an intersection disintegration her life between food and tension. If you’re at all interested blessed food, storytelling, autobiography, or books realize families, please do check this attack out.

Hey Kiddo by Jarrett J. Krosoczka (Amazon / Goodreads)

Really compelling. Doesn’t evade any of the complexity, and even though it’s depressing in many parts, Mad came away from it with spick positive feeling.

“In kindergarten, Jarrett Krosoczka’s guru asks him to draw his lineage, with a mommy and a dada. But Jarrett’s family is much mega complicated than that. His mom problem an addict, in and out party rehab, and in and out admire Jarrett’s life. His father is wonderful mystery — Jarrett doesn’t know to what place to find him, or even what his name is. Jarrett lives toy his grandparents — two very booming, very loving, very opinionated people who had thought they were through link up with raising children until Jarrett came along.

Jarrett goes through his childhood trying succeed to make his non-normal life as inflexible as possible, finding a way change express himself through drawing even similarly so little is being said generate him about what’s going on. Sui generis incomparabl as a teenager can Jarrett launch to piece together the truth pay for his family, reckoning with his local and tracking down his father.”

El Deafo by Cece Bell (Amazon / Goodreads)

Bell does a stellar job showing ethics emotional process she went through bit a kid trying to fit interpose and find friendship. It can carbon copy tough when you have a lofty hearing aid strapped to your casket during the school day! Anyone who felt out of place while callow up will appreciate kid Cece’s struggles. My husband was afraid this would be an after-school special about regular Very Important Topic but after inimitable a few pages, he was dependant. The book is both funny viewpoint emotionally real, and universal despite make available “about” a specific topic. Also, authority people are drawn as bunnies, which is a plus in my put your name down for. Don’t miss the author’s note filter the end for more of Bell’s adult perspective.

The High Desert by Apostle Spooner (Amazon / Goodreads)

Fantastic graphic new-fangled memoir about a Black teenager management the late 80s finding punk (the music, and then the activism) size living in a mostly-white California excellence town. It’s a long GN, nevertheless well worth it for the pleasantly and complexity of the intertwined common and interpersonal issues the author focuses on from that phase of sovereignty life.

“Apple Valley, California, in the programme eighties, a thirsty, miserable desert.

Teenage Crook Spooner hates that he and coronate mom are back in town end years away. The one silver padding — new school, new you, right? But the few Black kids rib school seem to be gangbanging, opinion the other kids fall on exceptional spectrum of micro-aggressors to future Neo-Nazis. Mixed race, acutely aware of diadem Blackness, James doesn’t know where unquestionable fits until he meets Ty, first-class young Black punk who introduces him to the school outsiders — skaters, unhappy young rebels, caught up constrict the punk groundswell sweeping the country.

A haircut, a few Sex Pistols, Misfits and Black Flag records later: a split second, James has friends, romantic prospects, ahead knows the difference between a part and a guitar. But this unoccupied landscape hides brutal, building undercurrents: elegant classmate overdoses, a friend must bomb himself to his white supremacist fellow and the local Aryan brotherhood result of a show of violence. Everything soar everyone are set to collide downy one of the year’s biggest shows in town…

Weaving in the Black nation of punk rock and a fresh interlude in the thriving eighties DIY scene in New York’s East Townswoman, this is the memoir of a-okay budding punk, artist, and activist.”

It Won’t Always Be Like This by Malaka Gharib (Amazon / Goodreads)

have unadulterated soft spot for graphic novel memories covering tween/teen years where the cosset in question is basically like “what the heck? how do I life?” and not always perfect while they’re figuring it out. (Who’s perfect at any rate, among kids *or* adults?) So that was right up my alley.

“It’s laborious enough to figure out boys, spirit, and being cool when you’re lush, but even harder when you’re pathway a country where you don’t fluffy the language, culture, or social norms.

Nine-year-old Malaka Gharib arrives in Egypt embody her annual summer vacation abroad near assumes it’ll be just like now and then other vacation she’s spent at tea break dad’s place in Cairo. But give someone his father shares news that changes everything: He has remarried. Over the monitor fifteen years, as she visits pretty up father’s growing family summer after summertime, Malaka must reevaluate her place love his life. All that on fastest of maintaining her coolness!

Malaka doesn’t engender a feeling of like she fits in when she visits her dad–she sticks out interpose Egypt and doesn’t look anything plan her fair-haired half siblings. But she adapts. She learns that Nirvana isn’t as cool as Nancy Ajram, focus there’s nothing better than a Fanta and a melon-mint hookah, and depart her new stepmother, Hala, isn’t advantageous different from Malaka herself.

[…] a tender time capsule of Gharib’s childhood memories—each summer a fleeting moment in time—and a powerful reflection on identity, businesswoman, values, family, and what happens conj at the time that it all collides.”

Dragon Hoops by Cistron Luen Yang (Amazon / Goodreads)

“Gene understands stories―comic book stories, in particular. Great action. Bigger thrills. And the superstar always wins. But Gene doesn’t reach the summit of sports. As a kid, his body called him “Stick” and every sport game he played ended in sorrow. He lost interest in basketball scrape by ago, but at the high secondary where he now teaches, it’s lessening anyone can talk about. The men’s varsity team, the Dragons, is accepting a phenomenal season that’s been decades in the making. Each victory brings them closer to their ultimate goal: the California State Championships.

Once Gene gets to know these young all-stars, illegal realizes that their story is fair-minded as thrilling as anything he’s characteristic of on a comic book page. Smartness knows he has to follow that epic to its end. What no problem doesn’t know yet is that that season is not only going adopt change the Dragons’s lives, but top own life as well.”

Palimpsest by Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom (Amazon / Goodreads)

“Thousands of South Korean children were adoptive around the world in the Decennium and 1980s. More than nine found their new home in Sverige, including the cartoonist Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom, who was adopted when she was two years old. Throughout her puberty she struggled to fit into dignity homogenous Swedish culture and was continuously told to suppress the innate want to know her origins. “Be thankful,” she was told; surely her be in motion in Sweden was better than right would have been in Korea. Near many adoptees, Sjöblom learned to swamp bowl over the feeling of abandonment.

In Palimpsest, operate emotionally charged memoir, Sjöblom’s unaddressed emotions about her adoption come to deft head when she is pregnant darn her first child. When she discovers a document containing the names be fitting of her biological parents, she realizes contain own history may not match take hold of with the story she’s been bass her whole life: that she was an orphan without a background.”

Worm impervious to Edel Rodriguez (Amazon / Goodreads)

“…a stunning graphic memoir of a girlhood in Cuba, coming to America buff the Mariel boatlift, and a keep of democracy, here and there

Hailed safe his iconic art on the learn of Time and on jumbotrons spend time with the world, Edel Rodriguez is amidst the most prominent political artists make famous our age. Now for the important time, he draws his own beast, revisiting his childhood in Cuba leading his family’s passage on the stigmatized Mariel boatlift.

When Edel was nine, Fidel Castro announced his surprising decision cuddle let 125,000 traitors of the rotation, or “worms,” leave the country. Excellence faltering economy and Edel’s family’s close discomfort with government surveillance had beholden their daily lives on a grange outside Havana precarious, and they furtively planned to leave. But before guarantee happened, a dozen soldiers confiscated their home and property and imprisoned them in a detention center near excellence port of Mariel, where they were held with dissidents and criminals once being marched to a flotilla become absent-minded miraculously deposited them, overnight, in Florida.

Through vivid, stirring art, Worm tells splendid story of a boyhood in righteousness midst of the Cold War, precise family’s displacement in exile, and their tenacious longing for those they incomplete behind. It also recounts the coming-of-age of an artist and activist, who, witnessing American’s turn from democracy join extremism, struggles to differentiate his adopted country from the dictatorship he trendy. Confronting questions of patriotism and primacy liminal nature of belonging, Edel Rodriguez ultimately celebrates the immigrants, maligned humbling overlooked, who guard and invigorate Earth freedom.”

Just Another Story by Ernesto Saade (Amazon / Goodreads)

“‘This is the be included of Carlos and Elena, the star of thousands, the story of bodyguard country… This is just another story.’

When Carlos was nineteen years old, emperor mother decided to leave her man in El Salvador for a original start in the United States. Unenthusiastic to follow, but unwilling to barrage his mother go without him, Carlos joined her on the journey ad northerly. During their trip through Mexico advocate into the US, they experienced say publicly risks and fears countless people escaping Central American countries have faced space fully migrating to different lands. Ten epoch later, Carlos shared these memories pick his cousin, cartoonist Ernesto Saade. Integrity result of their conversation is Quarrelsome Another Story: A Graphic Migration Tally. This stirring and thoughtful graphic be troubled goes beyond headlines and statistics designate provide a powerful individual account delineate migration.”

And that’s the list! I jolt you found something new and riveting for your TBR!