Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama

(Disclaimer: a close friend of mine really liked this book; another friend, I see now, gave it five stars. Both are intelligent people. So it's entirely possible that I'm just not smart enough to get it.)That said: ugh. This is basically a collection of Bechdel's Kindle Clippings, sentences she really REALLY likes from the works of an obscure psychoanalyst and Virginia Woolf and a few others, with annotations of why they are JUST SO AMAZING; toss in long tedious play-by-plays of her own psychotherapy sessions; add lots of her own dreams; sprinkle liberally with insecurities and neuroses, add just the bare minimum of Bechdel's beautiful art, and send it to a publisher.Bechdel is brilliant. Talented, intelligent, compassionate. Adorable, too, I'm sure (a recurring theme). [b:Fun Home 38990 Fun Home A Family Tragicomic Alison Bechdel https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327652831l/38990.SY75.jpg 911368] is poignant, touching, witty, wonderful. Insightful. But this one... is not her best work. It's tedious, unengaging.Virginia Woolf, Bechdel informs us, felt liberated of her mother after having written “To the Lighthouse”. I get the feeling Bechdel learned that and set off to liberate her own self. She very clearly needed to write this—and I earnestly hope it was successful, that she got what she needed. But I didn't need to read it, nor, I think, do you.