Tender

Tender was published on March 12, 2024. It is a psychological thriller in comic format and is the author's debut graphic novel.

The publisher's summary:

Carolanne wanted a perfect wedding, a perfect husband, a perfect family. She carefully performs her own roles (gal pal, bestie, girlfriend, wife, and expectant mother) and manipulates those around her to try and get the results she wants. Her desire to control the uncontrollable ultimately becomes her undoing. When things don't go her way, she exerts dominance over the one thing she does have total control over: her body; until that "betrays" her. After suffering a horrible loss, Carolanne spirals into a literal, all-consuming delusion causing her body to produce symptoms of a hysterical pregnancy ― as a result of her slicing off bits of her own flesh and eating them.

Chicago cartoonist and educator Beth Hetland’s graphic novel debut is a brilliant psychological thriller that tears down the wall of a genre ― body horror ― so often identified with male creators. Heady and visceral, Tender uses horrific tropes to confront women’s societal expectations of self-sacrifice despite those traditional roles often coming at the expense of female sexuality and empowerment.

 

I won't lie. After finishing the book I had to read the summary above in order to figure out what I just read. The story alternates between time periods as you would see with any psychological thriller. However, I was not expecting it and was confused as to what happened in Carolanne's life. A re-read helped me understand.

The horror aspect of the book is from Carolanne's self mutilation. We only have illustrations to know she was doing this to herself. Some of the illustrations were so jarring that I couldn't look at them. It's only apparent that Carolanne was trying to have a perfect life from these drawings and that the pressure she put on herself had to come out somewhere. We read about her striving for the perfect relationship, perfect wedding and perfect motherhood. Unfortunately none of that actually happened.

The ending was unexpected. I am still thinking about it a week after reading the novel and have a sinking feeling in my stomach. The author deserves accolades for writing the usual date, wedding, baby story from the horror genre. It works.

Not recommended for kids. The drawings have nudity and self-mutilation. 5 out of 5 stars.

Frontera

This stunning account of a fictional teenager crossing the Sonoran Desert for Arizona was written for young adults aged 13 through 17. Mateo makes the dangerous journey back home to the United States through the Sonoran Desert with the help of a new friend, a ghost named Guillermo in a supernatural borderland odyssey. Mateo grew up in Phoenix but his family was deported back to Mexico in the summer before his senior year of high school. All he wants in life is to be able to take his SAT test and finish high school. It is the debut graphic novel of Julio Anta and Jacoby Salcedo.

As long as he remembers to stay smart and keep his eyes open, Mateo knows that he can survive the trek across the Sonoran Desert. That is, unless he’s caught by U. S. Border Patrol. Just a few moments after Mateo sneaks across the border fence he is caught. However, he is able to escape but at a huge cost. He loses his backpack and gets lost in the desert. Mateo also is ill-prepared for the unforgiving heat. Enter the ghost, Guillermo, who leads him through the desert.

While a border crossing story is usually an ugly one, the magical realism brought by the ghost gives the novel a light feel. The colorful artwork contributes to this. It has been rendered in a four panel comic strip style a d colored with bright colors.

Frontera is a must read! 5 out of 5 stars.

The Woman in Valencia

The Woman in Valencia is a Staff Recommended book at the Chicago Public Library this month. I took it out of the library, though, because it takes place in my favorite international city, Valencia, Spain. It was originally written in French by Annie Perreault in 2018 and translated into English by Ann Marie Boulanger in 2021. It was published by QC Fiction, the Canadian imprint that specializes in translating French fiction into English.

The publisher's summary:  

While on vacation with her family in Valencia, Claire Halde witnesses a shocking event that becomes the catalyst for a protracted downward spiral and a profound personal unravelling as she struggles to come to grips with her role in the incident. This haunting novel, which unfolds across three timelines set in as many decades, takes the reader on a dark journey through the minds of three women whose pasts, presents, and futures are decided by a single encounter on a scorching summer afternoon.

Every published review of this novel that I have seen has highly rated it. However, I did not like it much. It was hard to get into and I restarted reading it about 4 times. The plot concerns Claire's obsession with a suicide that she witnessed in the rooftop pool of the hotel where she was staying in Valencia. We primarily read about Claire's internal thoughts whether she should have intervened and why she did not intervene. Claire kept the bag that the victim had with her at the pool and brought it with her when she returned to Valencia a few years later. Here, Claire dyes her hair blonde and assumes a Russian name. It was difficult to figure this out because Claire's internal thoughts about the Russian blonde made it seem that this was a different character. Herein lies the problem that I had with this book. It was near impossible to figure out the difference between plot action and Claire's thoughts. I also question whether there was any plot action at all. 

I cannot give this book a rating. In fact, I don't even know what genre it is and cannot figure out why this book is so highly rated.

The Baghdad Clock

The Baghdad Clock is the debut novel of Shahad Al Rawi. It was published in Arabic in 2016 and is a bestseller in Iraq, Dubai and the UAE.  It was published on May 8, 2018 in North America. I received an advanced review copy of the manuscript through the Early Reviewer's Program at Librarything.

The story opens in 1991 during the Gulf War when a young Iraqi girl meets a new friend, Nadia, at an air raid shelter. They become inseparable.  As the city begins to fall and economic sanctions hit their neighbors hard, the girls continue to share their lives with after school play time, parties, first boyfriends and their private thoughts. The main character, who is nameless, has the ability to read Nadia's dreams.  This bit of fantasy is a major part of the book.

Following this story was awkward. Either the writing or the translation was off.  The constant going back and forth to the main character's thoughts and plot action was off-putting.  It made me bored. I just wanted to finish the book as soon as possible.  I kept going back a few pages thinking that I missed action but never did.  The problem was that the main character's thoughts had stopped and plot action had begun again. I also kept looking for the main character's name.  I thought that I missed it and it frustrated me.  It's odd that every neighbor had a name, as well as all of Nadia's family members, but not the main character.

I believe this novel could be the poignant coming of age novel that every reviewer I have read says that it is. The plot itself is poignant.  There were too many problems with the writing or with the translation.  The fact that this book is a bestseller in Islamic Middle Eastern countries may indicate it's a translation issue. However, if the focus was not a coming of a age story between 2 young girls but rather what happened to members of a particular neighborhood during a war, this book would have been more successful for me. This focus seems more appropriate given that the main character provides her thoughts about neighbors as they leave Iraq for a better life elsewhere.  One of the characters who leaves, Uncle Shawkat, has a book called The Baghdad Clock:  The Record of a Neighborhood.

Another odd issue with the book is shown on the copyright page.  It states that Shahad Al Rawi has the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.  Huh??  The moral right? Then it says "Every reasonable effort has been made to trace the copyright holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them."  There was no writing within the book's pages attributed to anyone in particular.  The reader has to assume it all was written by Shahad Al Rawi.  Hmm.

I am a lone reviewer who did not like the book.  I cannot recommend it.