Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? (Chast) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
By turns grim and absurd, deeply poignant and laugh-out-loud funny. Ms. Chast reminds us how deftly the graphic novel can capture ordinary crises in ordinary American lives.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times


Very, very, very funny, in a way that a straight-out memoir about the death of one’s elderly parents probably would not be.... Ambitious, raw and personal as anything she has produced.
Alex Witchel - New York Times Book Review


[O]ne of the best memoirs on mortality I’ve ever read, let alone about the difficult specifics of eldercare....an achievement of dark humor that rings utterly true. There is Chast’s gifted ear for the shorthanded, idiosyncratic dialogue that every family develops only over long years.... Mostly, though, this is the humor-leavened portrait of a family saying its long goodbyes, awkwardly and glancingly and painfully, muddling through in the most human of ways.
Washington Post


Better than any book I know, this extraordinarily honest, searing and hilarious graphic memoir captures (and helps relieve) the unbelievable stress that results when the tables turn and grown children are left taking care of their parents.... [A] remarkable, poignant memoir.
San Francisco Chronicle


Devastatingly good.... Anyone who has had Chast’s experience will devour this book and cling to it for truth, humor, understanding, and the futile wish that it could all be different.
St. Louis Post Dispatch


Gut-wrenching and laugh-aloud funny. I want to recommend it to everyone I know who has elderly parents, or might have them someday.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel


One of the major books of 2014.... Moving and bracingly candid.... This is, in its original and unexpected way, one of the great autobiographical memoirs of our time.
Buffalo News


A tour de force of dark humor and illuminating pathos about her parents’ final years as only this quirky genius of pen and ink could construe them.
Elle


(Starred review.) [P]oignant and funny.... Despite the subject matter, the book is frequently hilarious...a homage that provides cathartic “you are not alone” support to those caring for aging parents.... [A] cartoon memoir to laugh and cry, and heal, with—Roz Chast’s masterpiece.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) Chast's scratchy art turns out perfectly suited to capturing the surreal realities of the death process. In quirky color cartoons, handwritten text, photos, and her mother's poems, she documents the unpleasant yet sometimes hilarious cycle of human doom. the inevitable.
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Revelatory.… So many have faced (or will face) the situation that the author details, but no one could render it like she does. A top-notch graphic memoir that adds a whole new dimension to readers’ appreciation of Chast and her work.
Kirkus Reviews