Spent: A Comic Novel
Charmingly shaggy ... Bechdel’s visual style is freer and lighter than it has been in years. Panels flow fluidly into one another and occasional splash pages vividly capture the communal tempo of Vermont life ... The real pleasure of Spent derives from watching its characters go about their lives, and imagining that Bechdel might continue their stories for the rest of her career.
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Bechdel pulls off a delicate balancing act. It would be easy to make excuses for these lovable but almost transcendently annoying people preoccupied with their own comfortable lifestyle, or to nastily mock them. Bechdel does neither: Her genuine affection for her characters...gives Spent a sweetness that makes even its cheapest shots feel good-natured ... Bechdel keeps the jokes coming at the pace of a good Simpsons episode ... If these characters are sad and bewildered by the state of the world, their frustration feels like a reassurance to readers who share it, and perhaps a gentle reminder that it’s easy to confuse being socially conscious with being self-serious.
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I found myself needing to get past a mildly annoying coyness that comes with the what-is-real-and-what-isn’t territory ... Very funny and very self-deprecating. Bechdel writes wryly about her own inconsistencies ... here’s something charming and funny on practically every page of Spent ... Even this crank knew that whether Spent is a novel or a memoir-ish doesn’t matter. Fictitious or not, the characters face problems that are very real.
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