How to baby : a no-advice-given guide to motherhood
by Liana Finck
New York: The Dial Press, 2024. 254 pages. Biography
How do you know if you're ready to have a baby? How do you know if you might be pregnant? And how do you deal with peeing all the time and being hungry all the time and fielding well-meaning but kind of insulting advice and finding a doula and being dropped by your old friends and learning why it's called mom brain and not dad brain and spending half your life on hold with your insurance company and the tyranny of the milestones you're not meeting and negotiating boundaries with in-laws and realizing that your heart now exists outside of your chest and in the body of this tiny little being whose entire existence depends on the quality of your care? To tackle these questions and many others, award-winning cartoonist and memoirist Liana Finck began illustrating her early years of motherhood, sharing her joys, fears, and insecurities with her many fans.
If you're weary of picture-perfect parenting guides that offer step-by-step instructions on what to do, How to Baby by Laura Finck is the book for you! It presents pregnancy and parenthood in their raw, unfiltered reality—highlighting the struggles and challenges that are often glossed over. Finck shares her personal journey, and while it may not mirror your own, it offers a sense of solidarity for anyone facing the ups and downs of parenthood. While some might interpret this book as a collection of complaints, I view it as a candid reflection of the shared human experience. It's a reminder that you're not alone in this journey.
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by Sophie Adriansen
New York : NBM Graphic Novels, 2024. 144 pages. Graphic Novel
Marietta and Chuck, madly in love, are expecting a baby. But childbirth marks the end of the fairy tale. Zoe's birth didn't go as Marietta imagined, and the maternal instinct is slow to manifest itself. While she no longer recognizes her body, Marietta feels herself losing her footing in the face of this vulnerable baby for whom she is now responsible. Will she manage to feel like a mother? To love her baby? To stop thinking that a proxy mom would do better than her? A humorful but realist viewpoint on a problem experienced by a significant number of new mothers, with an insight on how to overcome it.
by Lucy Knisley
New York: First Second, 2019. 247 pages. Graphic Novel
If you work hard enough, if you want it enough, if you're smart and talented and "good enough," you can do anything. Except get pregnant. Her whole life, Lucy Knisley wanted to be a mother. But when it was finally the perfect time, conceiving turned out to be harder than anything she'd ever attempted. Fertility problems were followed by miscarriages, and her eventual successful pregnancy plagued by health issues, up to a dramatic, near-death experience during labor and delivery. This moving, hilarious, and surprisingly informative memoir not only follows Lucy's personal transition into motherhood but also illustrates the history and science of reproductive health from all angles, including curious facts and inspiring (and notorious) figures in medicine and midwifery. Whether you've got kids, want them, or want nothing to do with them, there's something in this graphic memoir to open your mind and heart.
by Lucy Knisley
New York: First Second, 2020. 177 pages. Graphic Novel
Lucy Knisley is one of the great memoirists of the graphic
novel format. Following the completion of her pregnancy memoir Kid Gloves (and
the birth of her baby), Lucy embarked on a new project: documenting new
motherhood in short, spontaneous little cartoons, which she posted on her
Instagram, and which quickly gained her a huge cult following among other moms.
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