Unflinching honest And raw this has a lot of things to say and doesn’t ‘look away’ at any point. The art is spare but effective and the words, in places, devastating.

Parts of this graphic novel got at the unease of being a woman but not as successfully as I believe the author wanted to.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. I did not enjoy this book as it was dark and somber. But some people may find it useful.

*Received via NetGalley for review*

Definitely a quick read if you want to mull on the injustices and double standards of our world as women. But there was so much unformed and mis-directed anger on display here that I couldn't really relate.

I read this during my school commute so it was good to pass time but I wasn't super into it. The premise sounded interesting but the execution fell short.

This graphic novel wasn't as quick a read as graphic novels generally are for me. I usually love them, even the darker more gritty ones. This one was quite slow. There were several uncomfortable parts, though I feel like that isn't really an issue -- you could assume from the synopsis that some of the memoir would be uncomfortable. It's just the pacing and the narrating left a lot to be desired.

Wow... This was not at all what I was expecting and was actually pretty terrible. I get what the author was trying to do. She was trying to show the struggles that women have in today's society. But it was so stereotyped, it wasn't believable. The author comes across as a misandrist, homophobic and fatphobic. She constantly talks about how she, at 125 pounds is fat and therefore undesirable, and if you weren't desirable (to men) you were invisible and not worthy (very harmful for some people to read), how anal sex was violent and violating (homophobic, and also, her opinion, not a fact) and there was a comment about how she never read anything from male authors, and her over generalization of men based on her few experiences of how men treated her. (misandry). On top of that, the art was just not my style and I found it jarring.

I applaud the author for her candor and honesty in revealing these intimate details of her life and her story. But this came across as anger, instead of providing a solution to the problem. It was just a rant.

CW: homophobia, fatphobia, alcoholism, rape, assault, misandry, drug abuse, sexual abuse, graphic illustrations of genetalia,

It's raw and emotional. I loved this memoir!!
I would like to thank the publisher for giving me a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

'Commute: An Illustrated Memoir of Female Shame' written and drawn by Erin Williams is about a woman going to work and the feelings she perceives in those around her.

The book spends a long time on the author's morning routine. She catalogs the various people on the bus and the things she sees. It is interspersed with stories of abuse and alcoholism.

I liked the idea of this book more than the execution. The work feels so dire and monotonous. There is probably a tighter story in here, but this one rambles too much. I did like the author's art style, though.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel ABRAMS and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

TW/CW: sexual assault/rape, female shaming/slurs, alcoholism

I had so many expectations for this book. But I just didn't feel like I got anything out of it.

I want to start off by saying that this is a brave display of some really tough topics and hard times. I am not by any means discounting the experiences that are shared in this book. Rather the execution is what didn't work for me.

Overall, the book feels like an unedited diary. The dialogue is very much a stream of consciousness, rather than any type of story-telling or intentional prose. I understand that this is likely the intent of the book, but it just did not engage me.

It's a book that is very one-track mind - there is no real growth or insight being presented by the author. Rather just what is and thoughts that are spoken/written without any reflection or editing.

The illustrations as well - honestly, they were part of the reason I originally requested the book. But the simplistic design just seemed to add to the dull narration.

Overall, I appreciate the author presenting her experiences but this really isn't something that worked for me.

I was not a fan of this graphic novel. They want enough there to make it intriguing or want to stick with. I found it repulsive in some parts and perfectly boring in others.

This memoir of ‘female shame’ really tore in to my heart with its intimate authenticity. Erin Williams’ story does not bow down to normal conventions of removing banality and hiding the grittier aspects of life. This story is raw with honesty and flays your heart open like a fresh wound ready to take a repeated pounding. Maybe it was just me. Maybe it was the simplistic artistic style that did not aspire to perfection but rather existed as a visual representation of Williams’ message of shining a light on all of the things we try to hide. This story is not an easy read but that makes it all the more worthy of your time.

Pros:
Commute was an incredibly authentic story that lent weight and respect to the gritty and honest themes that were present (and darker in nature than I had anticipated). The impact of sexual abuse, addiction and the constant fight for recovery was evident throughout this book. It was real, scathingly honest and painted a picture that was hard to look away from.
I loved the banal elements in this book. At first I thought they were making an irreverent commentary on the unimportance of everything else in her life. Rather, the story highlighted the small, inconsequential events that we take for granted everyday. It lent a positive light on to the small victories that we almost forget about winning.
The message of being a sexual object or being invisible was one I hadn’t considered before but started to notice everywhere once I knew what to look for. It’s mind bogglingly simple as an idea and yet so complex and intricate in real life.

Cons:
I mean this with all due respect considering the content matter of this book, but it seemed to lacked a consideration for the similar circumstances many men face in their lifetime. They are not exempt from painful experiences of sexual abuse, addiction and recovery. I can see why they would have been painted as the ‘bad guys’ in this novel. I even agree with majority of the stereotypes placed on them as a whole. What I would have liked to have seen however, was some indication of the fact that women are not the only ones who struggle with these issues.
The onus of blame in regards to addiction was a tough one to swallow in this story. There never seems to be a ‘right answer’ or one direct person to blame. You can’t even blame the addict. I loved and yet disliked that this story did not have a clear or simple ending.

Erin Williams crafted a good graphic memoir, filled with personal relationship experiences (including rape, bad relationships and sex, her daughter's birth) and musings on women in society, all during her regular commute. It does take a little to ramp up, though, and the subject matter might turn some readers off.

Thanks to NetGalley for the free e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

It took me some time to finish this. I DNFed it two times, and between yesterday and today I managed to have enough will to finish it. And I'm glad I did. Even though I expected a little bit more out of it, it ended up being quite satisfying.

The first half of it was rather slow for me. That's why I struggled with it so much, I guess. Then it started to get more and more philosophical, nos talking about what the author, and women in general, experience during their daily commute, but also about female shame, rape culture, alcoholism, motherhood, and much more.

You can see how the author used this graphic memoir to deal with everything that happened to her, to heal along the way. I'm sure it will help a lot of readers who are or were in similar situations to know they are not alone and that there is a way out.

1.5 Stars

Wow... This was not at all what I was expecting and was actually pretty terrible. I get what the author was trying to do. She was trying to show the struggles that women have in today's society. But it was so stereotyped, it wasn't believable. The author comes across as a misandrist, homophobic and fatphobic. She constantly talks about how she, at 125 pounds is fat and therefore undesirable, and if you weren't desirable (to men) you were invisible and not worthy (very harmful for some people to read), how anal sex was violent and violating (homophobic, and also, her opinion, not a fact) and there was a comment about how she never read anything from male authors, and her over generalization of men based on her few experiences of how men treated her. (misandry). On top of that, the art was just not my style and I found it jarring.

I applaud the author for her candor and honesty in revealing these intimate details of her life and her story. But this came across as anger, instead of providing a solution to the problem. It was just a rant.

CW: homophobia, fatphobia, alcoholism, rape, assault, misandry, drug abuse, sexual abuse, graphic illustrations of genetalia,

I set a lot of things aside with topics personal to me but because I felt this was such an important book I made time for it. Sadly, this turned out to be something completely different to what I, and many others, had envisaged when reading the synopsis. I was willing to move past my usual mantra of not even really considering graphics novels and secondly, and much more importantly, I was willing to accept that this, owing to the topic, would undoubtedly open old wounds in regards to sexual abuse suffered in my past. I expected this to, of course, be very frank and honest but also to a large extent compassionate and that couldn't have been further from the truth. I think many will read the blurb, like I did, and go in expecting something similar to what I did but what they will receive is not merely a world away but a whole sprawling universe. Of course, reading is subjective and you may not agree with my critique on the matter.

The mention of shaming I assumed was going to be by the characters in this tale but actually, much of the shaming was done by the author and wasn't properly and forcefully addressed as being wrong. I couldn't believe some of the stuff contained in these pages and I hope this review helps to protect readers who may be upset, like I was, by the whole narrative. It portrays women as either victims of unwanted male attention or as invisible from male view and therefore lonely; these are very cut and dry and definitely not the full story. It's really quite bizarre, and not in a good way! I am rarely offended but found this came incredibly close to it especially all of the excuses made for male behaviour; as a survivor of sexual assault this made me feel physically sick, and I found it astonishing that the author has been through rape herself and was able to write about such encounters in such a blaisé manner. I write this negative review as a means to warn others and hopefully save them from some of the upset. Many thanks to ABRAMS ComicArts for an ARC.

4.5 stars ⭐

"The body remembers things that the mind would rather forget. I fight all day for control of my body, publicly and privately. For now I'm allowed to be handled and touched and looked at. For when I am allowed to shit and when to hold it. For when to eat and how and when to stop or risk fatness andd undesirability. My mind would like to forget what it feels like to be treated only as a body, an assembly of holes. But the body and its colonies explode with need. To deny these two parts is to deny your own humanity.

There's some heavy things in this book, it made me think about past relationships in a way I would rather not even think about. But it is necessary, we cannot live in denial forever...
I would definitely recommend this book, especially to men.

“There was no greater violence than affection.” If you like that quote, I believe you will enjoy Commute, a graphic novel for the #metoo movement.

Unfortunately, I just thought the book was sad. Erin had some difficulties early in life. To “overcome them”, she drinks. Heavily. Every night. Before finding some guy in a bar to sleep with. Even though she doesn’t enjoy it. As one character in the story states, “don’t look for oranges in a gas station.” I wanted to hear her story rather than the sad sack protagonist. The fact is that while complaining about men either desiring her or making her invisible, she is objectifying herself and all women by constantly worrying about being or becoming fat. Fat to her includes pregnancy, which is just terrible.

As you can probably tell, Commute wasn’t the book for me. I’m sympathetic with the issues portrayed. I hope that all female millennials and younger are not living the protagonist’s life portrayed here. If some of them are, then I hope they get a chance to read this empowering graphic novel. However, if you are not already on that road, I wouldn’t recommend picking this book up. 2 stars.

Thanks to Abrams ComicArts and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Let's start with a positive: I quite enjoyed the art work in this graphic novel. It's simple and mostly done in sketch lines, and I loved the layout, with lots of empty space.

I really didnt' like this novel though. The first quarter of the book seems to be focused on the main character getting ready for work in the morning, and this is described in so much detail that I quickly lost interest. I really don't need to read about someone's make-up routine or what she does and doesn't like to drink, yet a full page was centered around either of those things. The same goes for a full page centering her peeing dog (?!). This all just seemed irrelevant and completely uninteresting to me, and it had me impatient for the book to actually start.

Don't get me wrong: I fully understand this as an attempt to provide insight in the smaller and bigger types of oppression women face in their day to day life. The detailed descriptions of her own life seem to be a way for the author to humanize herself to the reader. I just didn't think this had the intended effect.

I mainly just disagree with some of the views the author shares. For instance, she says that women in public are either seen as desirable (and as such, are visible), which comes with a constant vage sense of threat. This is a good point. But she also says the other side of that medal, so to speak, is to be seen as undesirable and invisible, and this causes loneliness. I don't agree with this at all. Of course everyone has a different experience, and I understand the point the author is trying to make, but I think she missed the main issue with this. It's not undesirability in itself that's harmful because god forbid not being noticed by strangers will make you feel lonely. It's people thinking women's right to be respected is tied to how desirable the world finds them.

I think what I mostly didn't appreciate was the sort of internalized misogyny/fatphobia/whatever the fuck it was, that made the author constantly emphasize how important it is to her to feel desirable, and making several assumptions about every other woman also wanting to feel desirable (which just felt really aphobic to me, because no thanks, desire feels so gross to me). She even talked about "risking fatness" at one point. This is such a judgy and exclusionary vies, and it should be challenged more. Women's worth as people does NOT come from their thinness or desirability, and if even books that are promoted for being feminist buy into the notion that it does, then the bar is just way too low. She keeps going on describing fatness as synonymous to undesirability throughout the rest of the novel.

And to make matters worse, "I don't read books by men" is one of the biggest White Feminist takes I've seen in a while. Like, you don't read books by men AT ALL? Sure, don't read white allocishet men if you want, but what about marginalized men? Ugh. This was made even worse when she said something about finding anal sex "violent and violating", which is such a homophobic thing to say?

This book was just ok. I really hoped I would love it but it turned out to be a hit or miss. Although I found some of the pages - mainly the ending and the rape discussions very powerful and moving. I heavily disliked the fatphobic comments and the comments about not reading books by men. I was hoping for something striving towards equality and not misogyny. I liked the illustrations however, although simple they were interesting and humorous