Leslie Stein (1) (1982–)

This isn't a low score because this memoir is about abortion - it's just that it wasn't as deep or moving as I thought it might be. It just kinda slogged along with no clear direction. I love memoirs that are told via graphic novel so I picked up I Know You Rider and had high hopes. It was very slow paced and the illustrations sometimes made it confusing to tell who was who and I just didn't click with the story. It's brave to put your story out there like the author did - especially about such a polarizing topic - but it was just hard to engage or care about the story. Which I feel bad about because it's a memoir. I would love to try out more graphic novels by this author - this one just wasn't it for me.… (mere)

At first I thought this was going to be another series of real-life vignettes like the other book by Leslie Stein that I have read, Present, but slowly the elements pull together to recount an abortion the author had and how that caused her to focus and reflect on the concept of reproduction as well as her own path to happiness. It's an honest and thoughtful work that steadily drew me in.

My only reservations are with the art. I have trouble connecting with Stein's nearly faceless characters, their expressions practically emoticons -- rendered with a couple dots and short lines -- floating in a wide white space under what seem to be floating wigs. It doesn't help that the author prefers medium shots that always draw focus to the face, with most panels having just one or maybe two characters at a time. If you can get past this stylistic choice, it's a pretty good book.… (mere)

A couple of gems are hiding in this noodling collection of autobiographical short stories, but the navel gazing gets so intense that at times the author neglects to even draw the people with whom her cartoon character is talking. (Peanuts homage, maybe?) Other people might identify with this material, but it seemed dull and pointless to me.

The creator goes out of the way to mention a couple of times how pretty she is, which, y’know, great for her and her self-image, but odd for this book where faces are portrayed as large white voids with two dots and a short line serving more as an emoticon than a face.… (mere)