Are You Listening? - Book Review

Are You Listening? - Book Review

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Posted 2023-11-16 by Marisa Quinn-Haisufollow
Photo from Pan Mcmillian Australia

Are You Listening? is a 320-page Eisner-award winning novel from Tillie Walden that was published by First Second Books on 10 September 2019. Walden is a bestselling American cartoonist and author from Austin, Texas. Walden's published works include The End of Summer (Avery Hill Publishing, 2015), I Love This Part (Avery Hill Publishing, 2015), A City Inside (Avery Hill Publishing, 2016), and On a Sunbeam (2018). Walden has won a number of awards for her graphic novels. In 2016 she picked up three Ignatz awards for her work on The End of Summer and I Love This Part. In 2018 she was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for On a Sunbeam. She also became one of the youngest Eisner award winners ever, when her graphic novel memoir Spinning (First Second Books, 2017), won the Eisner Award for Best Reality Based Work.

A 2020 Eisner award-winner, Are You Listening? is a magical realism graphic novel that tells a very sad, but hopeful story, about the friendship and grief shared by two young women. The book follows eighteen-year-old Bea and twenty-seven-year-old Lou, who meet up at a gas station on their way out of town. The two of them decide to take a road trip together to Lou's great aunt's house and the pair attempt to return a lost cat they find along the way to a mysterious town called West. Along the way, Lou and Bea will open up to each other about their past trauma and grief, and they will be pursued by a pair of shadowy men who will question them about the cat in their possession.

I was a bit confused sometimes while reading this book. I was pulled in by Tillie Walden's storytelling and her artistic style, but the ever-changing landscape left me confused until it just clicked for me and I got it. The magic described in the book is a metaphor for the emotional state of the two protagonists. The white cat they find represents hope, the shadowy men trying to rob them of the cat is a representation of their trauma and grief, and the morphing landscape represents their emotional state. Tillie Walden's talent shines in this book. I liked the imagery of grief being a road that we travel down. It is a long journey through the dead of night that may feel endless but if we keep to the road eventually, we will see the sun rise again.

Summary: Are You Listening? is a story about two women who form a friendship while on a road trip together.
Websites:
Are You Listening - Pan Macmillian Australia
Tillie Walden Cartoonist and Illustrator
Cost $29.99
More Book Reviews by Marisa
Spinning - Book Review
Clementine Book One - Review
On a Sunbeam - Book Review

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83274 - 2023-06-11 06:40:02

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