One! Hundred! Demons!

Lynda Barry really has no peer; she is a genius. I truly mean that. One!Hundred!Demons! is a wonderful introduction to her work. It's a beautifully rendered book of vignettes that Barry refers to as "autobiofictionalography". There are very few authors who are able to capture the indelible essence of the simple and complicated world of childhood, in all its confusion and cruelty and anger and love and hate. I believe it's up there with the best works dealing with the themes of the loss of innocence and the inevitable, painful slide from adolescence into adulthood.

This graphic novel/memoir/comic is a treasure. Also, it's Barry's only book that is in color (I think), and the color really just makes it come alive.

I would also recommend show more Cruddy and The Best of Marlys, but, in my humble opinion, everything she's written is worth tracking down and reading. I cannot remember how I discovered her, but man, I'm sure glad I did. show less

An open, honest, and vulnerable memoir-ish book, with vignettes of the "demons" that still sometimes haunt her.

After first not getting her and being put off by her illustration style, I now love Lynda Barry. I almost wrote, "I now get..." but I'm not sure I do. I just know that I can't get enough of her instructional comics memoirs, or whatever other genre she flirts with but doesn't quite fall into. She is utterly unique, and I want to read everything she's written.

This book was good--not brilliant, but really solid work. I particularly love how she breaks one of the cardinal rules of memoir (it shouldn't be therapeutic) and then celebrates that she did ("Writing this was SO therapeutic!"). I also love how she breaks another cardinal rule of memoir and just makes stuff up for the sake of a good story (From now on, I'm planning to use her term "autobifictionalography" in response to everyone who asks if my fiction is based on my own life).

Some funny stuff, some heartbreaking stuff, and a few pieces that didn't quite go far enough, I thought. But overall, great work--I'm definitely going to keep my eyes open for more of her work.

What a great book! A collection of short illustrated stories, really about the stuff that plagues us and weighs us down. They never head in the direction you think they will but always end up somewhere complete and satisfying. If you love to be in the company of someone who doesn't quite think like anyone else, Lynda Barry is a magnificent host.

This collection of autobiographical comics is both brutally honest and wise. Barry manages the significant feat of dredging her memories for material and inspiration without ever seeming nostalgic or saccharine. Her illustrations are wonderfully ugly in the way that we all remember out painful adolescences.

One thing’s for sure: comics are NOT just for kids!! However, cartoonist Lynda Barry is an absolute genius at depicting the lives of children and teenagers. Somehow she just remembers exactly how it felt, what it looked like, and what it sounded like to be young. In ONE HUNDRED DEMONS, she uses a Japanese painting exercise to draw out some of her lost and forgotten personal demons. Sometimes funny, sometimes deeply sad (and often both), these cartoons lead the reader through familiar territory of growing up. The demons in this book include -- head lice, nasty ex-lovers, lost childhood friends, first jobs . . . and at the end of the book, you’re Invited to try it! (show back pages). Whether or not you paint your demons, you won’t show more be sorry that you read these comics. show less

I think I would like this more had I not also read The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Fun Home, and Persepolis of late; I think I'm done with semiautobiographical female comics memoir for the time being. I'm not saying One Hundred Demons is like the others completely-- it has a sense of humor that none of those books do-- but after reading them (not to mention American Splendor, Jimmy Corrigan, and Ghost World), I get it. The literary establishment likes its comics to be literary memoirs of tortured people. Now can we do something else? Why don't we like literary fiction at least? Thankfully Barry is less tortured than most. (Though in the seminar I read this in, at least one person criticized Barry for not being tortured enough. She demanded show more to know why race was more explicitly discussed. Maybe because nonwhite writers are allowed to write about things other than their own nonwhiteness?) show less