““There’s a difference,” Knisley’s bespectacled self says at the start of this breezy yet substantial graphic memoir, “between being a nerd, a fan, an enthusiast… and being an expert.” By the end of her chirpy story about crafting the perfect ceremony for marrying her fiancé, John, Knisley has gone through all of those stages. At once universal and deeply personal, this book is a visual and emotional achievement.” (Source: Kirkus Reviews)

Like her wedding, Knisley’s book is introspective and inventive the illustrations are charming, the language clear, and the sequence coherent. She documents in a self-expressive and clever style as she learns the compromise that comes with weddings, marriage, and love. With this engagement comes a breadth of unexpected feelings-excitement, reluctance, confusion-a tumult which Knisley terms “emotion sickness.” She asks herself hard questions about participating in what she has previously felt is a sexist and antiquated ritual which promotes exclusion, wondering “How can something so universal and ubiquitous as a wedding alter a person’s perception of herself so much?” With honesty and humor, Knisley tackles such difficult topics as overbearing mothers-of-the-bride, the misery of the “dress safari,” the “bridal weight loss imperative,” making the wedding her own artistic accomplishment, and dead squirrels.

After what feels like an irreconcilable difference of opinion concerning procreation, a complicated separation, some time in relationship limbo, and a wholehearted subway sob, Knisley finds herself engaged to John, a kind and sincere man whom she loves deeply. This one chronicles her handmade-down to the veil and groomsman’s pocket square-wedding. “Alex Award winner Knisley ( Relish, 2013, etc.) offers another genial and creative graphic memoir. Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Graphic Novels & Comics (2016) So she set out to plan and execute the adorable DIY wedding to end all adorable DIY weddings. It is the story of what came after: The Wedding.ĭIY maven Lucy Knisley was fascinated by American wedding culture. Three long, lonely years later, John returned to New York, walked into Lucy’s apartment, and proposed. In 2010, Lucy and her long-term boyfriend John broke up.

Something New by Lucy Knisley