The book that makes me to want read classic books
ARC received from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Why she wrote is a combination of graphic novel and biography of women who wrote in those times when a woman can not have her own voice but some of them wrote under a pseudonym. They talk about pain, lose, happiness and freedom, everything that seems impossible like impossible love, arrive to another country and a life where every person will be equal.
I do not read a lot of classic books, but this one gave me everything that I need to start to read them. We can see the history of some women who wrote books a long time ago and nowadays we can consider classics because it made a change in those times, also me can see in a few pages the problems that each one had and how affected when it comes to write. It makes me think that their struggle is not quite different than today.
I really liked this book, from the cover to the illustrations on each biography. Maybe it seems like a lot of biographies but when you start to read you do not realize that you are in middle of the book. Something that I appreciated is not all comics are not based in their love life, they are based in why they wrote and the problems that they had like copyrights, the color of their skin, the places where they came or for the only fact that they were women.

My thanks to NetGalley and Chronicle Books for an advanced copy of this graphic novel.

Why She Wrote: A Graphic History of the Lives, Inspiration, and Influence Behind the Pens of Classic Women Writers by Lauren Burke, Hannah K. Chapman, illustrated by Kaley Bales is the graphic novel that you never knew you needed, and after reading want more of. Eighteen women writers, most from before the twentieth century are featured, with a quick written introduction into their lives and works, with an illustrated section allowing the women to be seen, share unknown facts and inspiration and show how complicated their lives were even after their publishing. The illustrations are beautiful, panels are full of information and make the characters clear and interesting. These sections are funny, informative and inspirational. The reader will learn about copyright law, discrimination among the suffragette movement, and the gumption they needed to be published. I hope their will be many volumes in this series. A nice graduation gift for any young woman who thinks of entering the arts, or just to inspire young minds.

I was hopeful about Why She Wrote and it did not let me down. While reading, I kept thinking how a 15-year-old Me would have adored this book. I’m going to buy a print copy just to have. I was impressed with the biographical information and that the graphic novel portion included stories of the lives of the women writers. I had worried they would include novel excerpts so I was pleased by this. I enjoyed the details that were included in the illustrations. Overall, it was a quick read and I appreciate the authors’ reasoning for writing the book (e.g. they explained their backgrounds as podcast creators.

This was interesting but I think that it could use an edit. As a writer, I found places I see that can be made more concise. Just a preference.

Why She Wrote is a fantastic collection of the basics you need to know about some of the most notorious female writers out there. Not only does it cover a quick family history, but also the struggles that they faced trying to get their works published in an industry that even today does not give women writers all the credit that we deserve.
The format of this book is a great medium to reach different types of readers. There is a page of written text with information about the writer, and then there are a few pages of graphic novelized biography about them as well. This means that those who don't like to read do not have to read much before getting into the graphic pages, and those that are not into graphic novels (like myself) can dive into the writing and gloss over the drawn pages.
I think this would be a great addition to libraries and English classrooms in both middle and high schools.

There are 6 chapters, each dedicated to three female authors. Every author gets a very brief written bio, several pages of a comicbook treatment, one page of trivia and a short summary of their bibliography. I was sceptical about the format at first. The first chapter was hardest for me to get through because I know all three authors - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Ann Radcliffe and Charlotte Brontë - quite well and I didn't enjoy how short and incomplete the information on their life was. But as I went on I started to enjoy the book more and I fully appreciated the format when confronted with authors I knew nothing about, e.g. Alice Dunbar Nelson or Edith Maude Eaton. In conclusion, this is a great introduction to classic female authors. The format makes it perfect for people who are looking for a brief summary rather than detailed information and the illustrated portions of the book make it more appealing to a younger audience.

Disclaimer: I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this! I love the illustrations - they were beautiful and uniform without being repetitive and too similar. I appreciate the highlighting of women authors and their contributions to their respective genres, setting the bars high. I felt connected in one way or another to the different approaches each other author took to get their work out there. I think the balance between their personal lives and works was well done.

That said, I do think this was a missed opportunity to spotlight more women from marginalized communities. I believe there are 2 or 3 Black women and one half Asian woman included, and a few wlw relationships mentioned. While I appreciated learning more about the authors whose names I've heard my whole life, information about them is easily accessible. There are so many women of color, LGBTQ+ women, disabled women, etc. who have contributed so much to the literary world who deserve more shine among the greats included here.

Actual rating: 3.5, but not leaning to a 4. This book was quite fun to read because of the additional side illustrations that showed a bit more of the author's personality that was highlighted. Perfect for a younger audience who would like to know more about authors and why they wrote, as a glimpse into their life can really give a lot of context on their writings.

Why She Wrote is the perfect book to share this March, which is also Women’s History Month. ⁠
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Why She Wrote is written by Lauren Burke and Hannah K. Chapman and illustrated by Kaley Bales and will be available in April 2021.⁠
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Why She Wrote is a non-fiction book about famous women writers from the past. Every chapter in this book provides a short biography of the author and also has a graphical story of a key moment in the author’s life. The book starts with how writing was not a respectable profession for women, the aliases the writers used, and how a few women writers fought for the copyright of their works. It also mentions that many authors turned to write as a means to support themselves.⁠
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The first time I knew that Frankenstein was written by a woman, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, I was surprised. Also, I was surprised when I knew George Eliot was a woman named Mary Anne Evans. In this book, I learned that Beatrix Potter fought to earn copyright of her character, Peter Rabbit, which was sold as a stuffed animal by stores and infiltrated on the ownership of her work. ⁠
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Thank you to @netgalley and @chroniclebooks for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. I would have enjoyed the paper version of this book more.⁠
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Category: Adult non-fiction (part graphical)⁠
Publication date: Apr 2021⁠
Authors: @bonnetsatdawn

A breezy biography of women writers boasting brilliant representations of some of blockbusting bigwigs of the written word, Why She Wrote is well-researched and bristling with entertaining and excellently rendered re-enactments; I really enjoyed the Anne Lister and Edith Maude Eaton extracts especially. Limelighting the rocky roads and rough waters that racked the lives of these wearied women of letters, Why She Wrote is a learned and lively resource that is laudable in referencing the works of lesser-known litterateurs from the trenches of literature - though it is tentatively a touch reductive in being limited to explicitly *English* literature, and with the less lightweight topics it is sometimes too laid-back when it could be more reserved and reflective. Still, it serves as an illuminating introductory resource or inspiring refresher to recap things for the already initiated on the subject, and makes for a riveting and indulgent read all in all.

"Why She Wrote" is a mix between autobiography and graphic novel. about 18 classic women writers.
With a summary page about their lives - one page at the beginning of every chapter - we discover why she wrote, her fun facts and bibliography.
Theese authors are represented like a linked trio, even if they haven't personally known eachother.
The title is also about the development of women's rights.

The passage between written pages and comic was a little bit "hard" sometimes.
I think that the script font used was difficult to read.

This is a great book for advanced readers and adults alike. The graphic elements provided context to a formational aspect of each author's life and work. The content wasn't always groundbreaking, but the format brought these stories to life and made me want to reread some of my favorites and read some other authors for the first time. I recommend it for any lover of classics and would happily give a copy to any young reader looking to be inspired by some legendary authors.

A very interesting way to learn about these literary heroines!

Despite the difficulties of being women of their times, they managed to find in literature a form of expression for the oppression against women.

In addition to noting that in hardships there is also inspiration.

EASY AND PRETTY

A good mix of biography and graphic novel. It was an interesting and new mix and I enjoyed it. There were some issues for me, but overall I think this is a worthy book for anyone who is interested to learn more about classical women writers.

👍 What I Liked 👍

Graphics: The graphics that described a scene in each woman's life were interesting and engaging. They had just the right amount of emotions and feelings, some of them were even quite humorous. The artwork was slightly dark and heavy, but if you're into that, it was very pretty.

Easy: This is an easy entry point to learning more about these amazing women. It doesn't drag on, it gives you the important points and may just help wet your appetite. Don't expect to get the entire story here, each biography is only one page long - but this is a good place to start.

👎 What I Disliked 👎

Autobiography: I don't like it when people perpetuate the notion that all women's fiction is autobiographical to a lesser or greater extend. We never say that about men's fiction, so why do we keep saying it about women? As if women are incapable of original thought. At times I felt like this book bought into that idea a bit too much, which bothered me.

Title: The title actually threw me off, because I was expecting to learn more about what drove these amazing women to write. However, I don't think I got that answer for any of the women...

Lesser known: I really wish that this book would have included more lesser known women, such as Jane Porter or Maria Edgeworth. They deserve to be remembered and written about as well.

This was a pretty interesting compilation of information about various women writers. My favorite part was definitely the artwork - it was beautiful. Because so many writers were covered, there's not a lot of in-depth information about any one writer. However, if you're just looking for a nice overview of women writers (and are looking to be introduced to a few new ones), then this is a great place to go.

Happy International Women's Day everybody! In honor of today I had the privilege of reading Why She Wrote: A Graphic History of the Lives, Inspiration, and Influence Behind the Pens of Classic Women Writers. This book is half truncated biographies of 18 female authors from the 18th, 19th, and 20th century and half graphic retellings of incidents that affected these authors' lives. Having studied a lot of these authors (I'd also like to make a shout-out to the amazing history podcast The History Chicks who have in-depth biographical episodes on 8 of the women covered in this book) there are pros and cons to how the book is laid out.

The copy I received is over 250 pages so I understand that space is limited, however I felt like the biographies might of suffered due to the need to keep them to one page. A lot of the biographies focus heavily on what led up to the scene that is graphically represented but doesn't explain what happens afterwards. I also noticed in the beginning the transition from the biography to the graphic retelling was at times perplexing and left the reader a little lost. However, by the end of the book it was easier to jump from the biographies straight into the graphics. I don't know if it was user error or having to do with the structural elements in the writing at the beginning versus midway through the book. It is very anglocentric with 13 out of 18 of the authors being British.

However, I enjoyed the read and found the graphic sequences to be interesting. The artwork is muted in color and it translated the struggles these women faced in an evocative way. There are some dark scenes conveyed through these graphic stories so I wouldn't recommend this book for children. This book also introduced me to some authors I'd never heard of. It's always exciting to discover new women and their work and I definitely added some books mentioned in Why She Wrote to my to-read list. I liked how the book divided the authors into six different groups that highlighted themes shared by the authors in that grouping. The introduction to each group was some of my favorite writing in the book. Overall if you're interested in classic literature and the stories of behind the women who wrote some of the most influential literature in the English language I'd recommend picking this up as a good starting point.

I give this 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

This book is a very interesting and educational introduction to some of the greatest classic women writers. Some names are very familiar, others are introductions to fascinating women. All of them further reason to be in awe of what they accomplished in their lifetimes and add them to the TBR list.
We meet each writer in quick snapshots of their lives followed by a short comic of a particularly important/relevant moment in their lives. The comics are pretty straightforward when it comes to the art style, but they express the emotions and events pretty clearly.
Overall, I would have liked to get a bit more info on the writers, but I do appreciate the art and how it gives you enough information to do your own research if you're interested enough in a writer.

Many happy thanks to NetGalley and Chronicle Books for the early read!

The premise of the Why She Wrote is what drew me in, but I was actually pretty disappointed. My expectations were for a graphic novel about the lives and writings of classic female authors. What I got was a lot of background text in paragraph forms and one illustrated scene from each writer’s life. The biographies didn’t flow well into the panels, and the panels didn’t flow well into the summary information.

The book was divided into sections based loosely on genre or life experience. It felt, however, like the authors were lumped together randomly. The intro pages to each section didn’t explain why these authors were grouped with one another.

The illustrations themselves were also lackluster and seemed to be done in three different styles. In the introductions to each section, there is a more stylized illustrated bust of each author. The cover page of each section also has an illustration of each author done in a different style. The panels have a very comic-book feel to them. The faces on each of these three versions is different, however, the faces of each character in the panels looked the same. Had the not be labeled, I would not have been able to distinguish one character from the next. The text in the comics was also difficult to read, especially the diary writing sections.

Overall, this one was a letdown.

Thank you yo #netgalley and #chroniclebooks for gifting me an ARC of Why She Wrote, which comes out April 20, 2021! I thoroughly enjoyed this graphic history of the lives of many female writers- some I was very familiar with (the Brontes, Austen, Alcott, etc) and some I knew little of (Anne Lister, Alice Dunbar-Nelson). This was a really fun, quick read that reinvigorated my love for some classic works- I can't wait to read Northanger Abbey and Withering Heights again! This is a book I would 100% recommend to parents and teachers, especially for eager young readers and writers! I only wish it were longer so we could read about more writers!

This was an interesting graphic novel that had 18 comics that dealt with women writers and why they started to write, their inspiration, and their lives in general. Many of these were very good and were stories I had never read about. This is a clever idea to teach about these inspirational women throughout history. I recommend this to those that like the classics, especially if you want to learn about authors.