Are You Listening by Tillie Walden

Are You Listening? by Tillie Walden
Published September 10th, 2019 by First Second
Source: Publisher
Genre: contemporary fantasy, graphic novel
Goodreads
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Are You Listening? is an intimate and emotionally soaring story about friendship, grief, and healing from Eisner Award winner Tillie Walden.

Bea is on the run. And then, she runs into Lou.

This chance encounter sends them on a journey through West Texas, where strange things follow them wherever they go. The landscape morphs into an unsettling world, a mysterious cat joins them, and they are haunted by a group of threatening men. To stay safe, Bea and Lou must trust each other as they are driven to confront buried truths. The two women share their stories of loss and heartbreak—and a startling revelation about sexual assault—culminating in an exquisite example of human connection.

This magical realistic adventure from the celebrated creator of Spinning and On a Sunbeam will stay with readers long after the final gorgeously illustrated page.

Trigger warnings for off-the-page sexual assault mentioned and parental death mentioned

I haven't read any of Walden's previous work but I can say that after reading this, I need her entire backlist. The art was beautiful, the characters even more so, and the story hit lots of buzzwords for my particular reading taste.

Are You Listening? follows Bea and Lou as they journey across Texas. There are some surreal elements, like the people who are tailing them and the semi-magical cat, but really this story is about piecing yourself back together. There is trauma in here, which is hard to read, but nothing graphic or on the page at all, just mentioned. I don't usually gravitate toward queer pain but this was made beautiful by two queer women holding each other up and helping to heal one another. I just absolutely love that. I love the idea of an older queer woman taking a younger queer girl under her wing and supporting her. We need more LGBT+ elders in our fiction, please! The friendship between these two women was cathartic for me to read about. I loved everything about their relationship.

I read an ARC copy of this, so only the first couple of pages were in color. I can't wait to get a finished copy so I can see the whole thing as it was intended, because the color pallette in the beginning was just gorgeous. I loved the art style as a whole though a few frames felt rushed and unfinished when it came to the details, particularly the character's faces.

I knocked the book down one star because I felt it could have been longer. I love the breezy pace of the graphic novel, but there were some loaded, heavy topics that could have used more pages to flesh out. Some of Lou's decisions in particular seemed rushed, and even though I know the book was mainly from Bea's point of view, I think more clarity about Lou's mindset could have helped.

All in all I really loved this and if you're ready to see more queer elders and wlw supporting each other, you need to pick this up! You'll fall easily for Diamond and the end will leave you in awe.