Denise Dorrance

graphic memoir - a woman travels from her home/family in London to look after her mother with severe dementia in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in winter storms of January 2019.

very well done (I can see why it got such good reviews) with skilled storytelling (as you would expect from a noted cartoon artist) and artwork. I liked how it showed the complex feelings around the author's mother and her relationship with her sister. There is so much packed into this short graphic memoir ❤️.
Highly recommended --… (more)

Denise Dorrance’s memoir about the two months of her life when she suddenly must fly back to America to care for her mom with dementia who desperately needs to find her last home.

The way insurance was in this novel was both shocking and yet didn’t surprise me at all. Made me think about my own grandma who had dementia in her last years who was in a nursing home. My mom never got into details about it with me, but she is 8 of 9 children, and the surviving 7 pitched in to help with her care at the place. Still - dementia is hard. The last time I visited my grandma before she passed, she thought I was my mom but had no idea who my mom actually was (I am my mother's mini-me).

Unlike the author though, I’m close with my mom and my sisters, so even though I worry about what it will be like for my mom in her older years, I know the three of us have got it handled.

This isn’t a happy story. You kind of know where it’s going when you go into it, you know?

But, nowadays, everyone at least knows somebody who had dementia - maybe not a close family member, but someone. This book will kick you in the heart, that’s for sure.… (more)

This book is just sad. I cannot finish it. It’s a memoir of a woman who is constantly wanting to run away from home, but has return home when her mother with dementia falls ill. She has to do what she can to take care of her mom while laminating her brother‘s death and her sisters indifference. These two can’t get along. Most of this book at the halfway point has been how she feels about her mom and a little bit about her mom‘s history, It's also about what she hates about living in the US. There are some interesting things, for example death as a character shows up on multiple pages and even talks with the protagonist. Death is looming over the entire story. The reader knows where this book is headed but I have no desire to get there. It’s sad the protagonist is unlikable and I really have no desire to finish this book.… (more)