Ulli Lust

One of those graphic memoirs where I find the author's life choices completely alien. As the book starts, Lust is around 20 and living in Vienna as her Her parents raise her young son from a previous, um, relationship in the country. She is considering a green card marriage with a Kurdish immigrant, and dating a man almost twice her age named Georg. Ulli and Georg decide to have an open relationship, and Ulli begins seeing a Nigerian immigrant named Kimata. In addition to being polyamorous, show more Ulli is sex positive, and there are a lot of very graphic sex scenes.

And despite all that going on, the book is rather dull and meandering in the first half. Around the midpoint, one of the relationships takes a turn for the worse and the domestic violence gives the book focus and momentum, even as her choices remain alien to me. show less

Wonderfully communicates a young woman's experience living as a runaway street urchin in 1980s Europe. The writing is funny, brave and unfiltered, the drawings capture the manic highs and lows of youth with a sort of elegantly messy quality. Three and a half stars.

Wonderfully communicates a young woman's experience living as a runaway street urchin in 1980s Europe. The writing is funny, brave and unfiltered, the drawings capture the manic highs and lows of youth with a sort of elegantly messy quality. Three and a half stars.

A beautiful novel, with an interesting subject, that works just as well as a graphic novel as a prose one. I wish there had been a little more explanation/exploration of Karnau's experiments and what exactly happened to the Goebbels children (I appreciate the different versions and the uncertainty - it really is incomprehensible - but then that last recording really threw me).