Ducks by Kate Beaton
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Anonymous
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I started a thread on this in the entertainment forum a few weeks ago but it understandably got buried. Has anyone else read this? I enjoyed it so much!
(Also thanks for the new forum Jeff!) |
Anonymous
| Not yet but it’s on my list! |
Anonymous
What did you like about it? What was it about? |
Anonymous
It’s a loose autobiography of a cartoonist who goes to work at the Alberta oil sands to pay off her student loans. It’s a graphic novel btw; the author wrote the early webcomic Hark, A Vagrant, which I read religiously through grad school which is how I first heard of it. I love the sense of humor but this is a much more serious/coherent story than the little history comics and I thought it was beautifully put together. I think what I liked best about it was that it draws up and highlights a bunch of contemporary problems — generational wealth inequality, climate change/human impact on the environment, the crushing weight of student loan debt, indigenous people’s land rights, sexism/gender dynamics in make dominated work environments, the way humans get weird in isolated/closed societies, family and cultural relationships, etc — but don’t try to present solutions, just acknowledges that they’re there and in tension with one another. And it treats all the characters with kindness and respect, I feel like? I don’t know, it really hit home for me. |
Anonymous
| I just learned about this book today. It’s included in a New Yorker list of the best books of the year so far. Thanks for mentioning it, OP! |
Anonymous
Let me know what you think when you read it! So glad to hear it's getting recognition from the New Yorker. I'm one of those exhausted moms who rarely makes time to read, especially things that aren't predictable genre fiction lol, but this was an absolute delight. |