About the book: In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.
My Views
I have read a few Graphic Novels, like Heartstopper by Alice Oseman and Happily Ever After & Everything In Between by Debbie Tung earlier but never a Graphic Memoir. And so it was a new experience. The author here talked about a lot of things in this book from eir life and how e faced a lot of issues like being treated differently in school and childhood, dating experience, periods, supportive family, finding one’s identity and sexuality, coming out and being oneself. The author’s relationship with eir family and cousins was so wholesome and heartwarming. The illustrations were beautiful and I loved them.
The author gave a lot of bookish references in between which I enjoyed. Although at times it became a little confusing for me for the way it was written and because there were instances where it could have shown more but didn’t. Although having a supportive family, I didn’t see much about them as well which could have shed more light on the author’s life. This book was more about the identity issues that the author had rather than being an absolute memoir which the title suggests. But it was a good book altogether which I finished in a sitting and got to learn a lot of things as well. If you are looking forward to reading a book I’ll give it 3.15/5 stars.
(Since the author uses pronouns e/em/eir, I mentioned the same in the review whenever it’s mentioned.)
Read Also: Happy Endings by Minita Sanghvi
If you liked the review or have any feedback, don’t forget to let me know in the comments! Also, if you haven’t followed my blog till now, what are you waiting for?
This post is a part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2023 for letter Q in “Gender Queer”
Previous Posts
Jainand Gurjar 