Why She Wrote combines so many of the things I love: graphic nonfiction, women's history, feminism, female writers... As soon as I got approved for this ARC, I knew I would love it, and I was right!

Why She Wrote gives small glimpses into the lives of writers like Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, and Frances Hodgson Burnett. In total, 19 women from different era are featured, and while many were familiar to me (your Brontes, Austen, Alcott, etc.) some were a pleasant surprise. I had never heard of Edith Maude Eaton, Frances Burney, and Ann Radcliffe. And I was pleasantly surprised to see Anne Lister included here.

I enjoyed Chapman and Burke's approach to this collection. I liked that they kept each woman's story short and specific to one moment in their life. I like that at the end of each chapter, they included connections to the other women in the collection and included a list of selected works. Chapman and Burke also get major kudos from me because this book is indeed beautifully sourced. I love to see it!

Kaley Bales' illustrations are terrific. I particularly loved her portraits of each woman at the beginning of their sections. However, her illustration style's success varied for me from profile to profile. I did absolutely hate the lettering/typography. It felt sloppy and out of place; I hope this gets fixed before its publication day because it did take me out of the story visually.

If you're into graphic nonfiction, I would definitely recommend Why She Wrote.

A really cool compilation and celebration of woman writers! Why She Wrote is unique because it is a compilation of biographies and comics and fun facts. This is a great book for any and all literary lovers and would make a great addition to a classroom or school library.

Such a cool book! With lots of different takes on different women! Also the art was very cool and I liked that it varied!

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review!

I thought this book was really informative on the many women throughout history who have contributed to classical literature. I enjoyed the short biography about each women that was written and the accompanying illustrations. However, the transitions between each entry and even the graphic novel portions of each one were a bit disjointed. This created a rather ridged flow of the book. Overall, I really enjoyed the concept of the book, just not so much the execution.

3.5/5

This book looks into the private (and often hidden) worlds of a variety of women writers throughout history to examine their lives and the inspiration for their famous works. Each author's section features a short text introduction followed by a comic about that writer's life and/or works. Each section ends with a few additional short facts and a collection of selected works by that author for further reading. This book gives readers a nice bite-sized introduction to various women writers and is a quick and easy read. I also liked the extensive bibliography and further reading section at the end of the book.

However I would have preferred more of the book to be in a graphic format rather than just the short comics. The introductory paragraphs at the start of each author's section could have easily been illustrated. Additionally, the line between fact and fiction was sometimes a bit hard to discern in the comic sections. Overall though this was an enjoyable read and good for those interested in women's history as well as those interested in the backstory of many classic works of literature.

3.75⭐️

it was very interesting to learn about women, that their workes so common in our language and part of our culture, their life struggles, and their inspirations. I even learn about women I didn't know existed.

the book separated into six chapters, every chapter has three different writers that have something in common. Each chapter begins with a brief background on the period that those women lived in and then the book focuses on one of the writers each time and tells her story briefly and continues to a comic about her.

sometimes I felt that the comic part was the same thing that I already read above and it was a little repetitive for my taste but sometimes it continues from where we finished reading the brief history so then it was interesting.

overall I enjoyed the book very much and it even gave me some inspiration to read some of the classics I haven't yet.

A delightfully different look at the lives of 18 women writers, some of whom I knew very well (the Brontës! Louisa May Alcott!) and some I didn't but wished I had (Alice Dunbar Nelson, Sui Sin Far, Anne Lister). Each writer has an introductory essay devoted to her, and then comes the fun part: a graphic-novel imagining of key moments in her life (e.g., Anne and Charlotte Brontë's trip to London to reveal their true identities to their publisher). An enlightening AND entertaining read--would recommend.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an advance copy in exchange for this review!

Why She Wrote by Lauren Burke and Hannah K. Chapman asks why some of the great English-language women writers chose to write. These women lived during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries – times when women were often discouraged from being authors.

Some of the women profiled in this book are very well-known. I read about Jane Austin, Mary Shelley, Louisa May Alcott, the Bronte sisters (each one has a separate chapter), and even Beatrix Potter. But others are forgotten today – many people today probably have never heard of Ann Radcliffe, Mary Wollstonecraft, or Elizabeth Gaskell, or read any of their works.

This is a cross between a biography and a graphic novel. Each section includes some text that gives a brief biographical overview of the individual. This is followed by a comic that focuses on a key point in the writer’s life. The artwork is simple but engaging and the material is very readable. One thing I particularly like is that a list of selected works is included for each writer. So if I would like to take a foray into works by early women authors, this book basically provides a reading list.

Thanks to NetGalley for giving me a free e-copy of this book.

Wonderful! Original, inspiring and very informative.
The reasons why those eighteen women started writing are indeed the same. Some of them had more reasons to add, such as earning money to help their families, but the essence is always the same.
There are several details about many of these writers I didn't know, so it's been quite an enjoyable reading.
The comics about each one show determined moments of their lifes in relation to their experiences with writing: declined manuscripts, mysogenist comments and critics about their works and/or personal life, lack of time, among others.
Another experience they all have in common is how hard they had to work to prove they could write important and outstanding stories; they had to struggle daily with a sexist society, where writing, as well as many other things, was for men. If women were to write, they could only do it about religious topics or flowery romance. They weren't believed to be able to write serious and/or clever stories.

Thanks to Chronicle Books and NetGalley for providing me with this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

This is an inventive and beautiful collection of biographies on some of the most well-known but sometimes misunderstood female writers. I love the structure of a one page biography leading into a graphic novel glimpse of the writer’s personality, lifestyle, and potential conflicts faced. Providing a book list for further discovery of the author is a wonderful edition as well. I can see using this as a teaching tool, inspiring students to try out classic literature, and returning to this text to find out more information about the authors. Thank you, Netgalley, for this ARC!

⭐️3 Stars ⭐️

A beautifully constructed graphic novel that explores the lives of women writers throughout time while educating the reader about their past, what influenced their work, and how they affected literature and culture even after their deaths. In reading this novel, we understand why these women wrote.

Since this book features biographical pages and comic panels that detail significant events about the women's lives, I feel that it gives a unique, intimate look into the lives of those it covers. Although, at times, I felt that the level of detail included in the biographical sections impacted the pacing of the comic panels negatively, this did not hinder my enjoyment of this book. I believe that this novel contains some beautiful scenes able to deepen the feeling of intimacy between the reader and the historical figure. I learned about the lives of queer women, whom I knew little about before reading this novel. And I enjoyed these chapters immensely. I would love for the editors of this novel to collaborate again on a second volume of this wonderful book. If they were to do this, I would like to see a more diverse selection of women than those they chose to cover in this novel, perhaps covering more POC writers and queer writers of history.

This book is suitable for readers of any age who want to learn about some of the most influential women writers the world has ever seen. And since each section ends with an invitation to read the featured authors' works, I feel that this novel will encourage many young readers to enter the realm of classic literature with an open mind so they can be ready to read critically and question the canon popularised by old white male academics.

You Should Read This Book if you Like:
+ Easily Digestible History 📚
+ Beautiful Art ✍

I received an advance review copy for free via NetGalley. I am leaving this review voluntarily 📚.

super cute illustrations and history of badass females!
i loved the frankensteins mom through the years and the profiles of each of the women!

easy quick educational read!

This book is unlike anything I've read before. It's a non-fiction historical novel about some of the greatest female writers that lived in the 18th, 19th, and 20th century. There are stories about Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, the Bronte sisters and so many now. I didn't even know some of the authors that are written about so that was really interesting.

The coolest aspect of this book is that it isn't just your classic non-fiction collection of short bits of information about different people. With every person, there's a short summary and then a quick comic that shows a story of why each of them wrote. It shows us a glimpse into their lives in a really fun and interesting way. I definitely love this concept because it makes learning about history more fun and accessible.

I really want to get a physical copy since my main issue was that reading the eARC was quite difficult because the text is small in the comics. (If you have a tablet, that would also be much better.) Overall, this was just really interesting and fun and I really recommend it if you want to learn a bit more about some female writers.

This was such a fun read! The minute that I finished this book I immediately picked it up and started to read it again to make sure that I had taken everything in. I loved the artwork in the comic sections. They were so detailed, yet simple and easy to follow along. The text bubbles didn’t seem overbearing. I also loved the brief bios and the list of collections by each writer was a nice touch! Finally, I loved the representation in this novel; it included women of color and women who identify as LGBTQ+. I cannot wait to purchasing this book for myself and other amazing women in my life.

* I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review *

This was a fast, enjoyable read, much in the same vein as The Secret Lives of Famous Authors. The book is an interesting, engaging hybrid of a traditional book and a graphic novel. The other interesting thing is that as far as I can remember, there wasn't much in the way of profanity or adult situations, so this book could easily be given to middle-grade readers in a classroom setting.

The book is organized into six sections, with three profiles per section for a total of 18 authors. While it bears mentioning that the profiles are overwhelmingly straight white women, there is some representation of non-white and queer writers, which is always a welcome sight. Each section introduces a specific literary concept or social norm these female authors navigated (or broke a glass ceiling with), and after the introduction, each section has three author profiles. Each profile has an illustration of the author (in a frame, like a portrait or a cameo), their dates of birth/death, and a famous quote. This is followed by about a page of introduction and historical context about each other, leading into the best part of the book, the graphic novel section illustrating a pivotal event in each author's life. The section then ends with a brief epilogue (a page or less), with a rundown of the author's selected works.

You'll find just about all the names you'd expect to see: Jane Austen, all three Bronte sisters, Mary Wollenstonecraft and Mary Wollenstonecraft Shelley, Louisa May Alcott, etc. There are some curious authors left out, like Emily Dickinson, Sojurner Truth, Phyllis Wheatley, or Harriet Beecher Stowe, and the book doesn't really cover m/any twentieth century authors. Whenever there's a book like this, someone's bound to be overlooked, so it's better to focus on who IS included and overall, it's a great place to start.

It was very easy to read, enjoyable, and I think best intended for a middle-grade or high school reader (or a light casual read). It definitely whets the appetite to discover these authors or revisit their work.

This is a lovely introduction to a variety of brilliant bygone female writers. The introductions offer a bit of biography and context, while the graphic novellas offer a bit of life and color. The art style wasn't totally my favorite, but I really appreciated how individual each one was.
A great introduction for younger readers to important women in the formative years of Western lit.

This is a nice overview of the lives and motivations of a selection of women writers from the 18th to early 20th centuries... and not just the ones you'd expect, either. Most readers will probably encounter at least a couple of names they haven't heard before. The reader grasps how incredibly easy it has been throughout history for women's creative works to be ignored, dismissed, or minimized. It's thought-provoking to consider that the catalog presented here is really only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to women who write.

The book is part text and part graphic story, with each graphic depicting an author at a potential turning point in her life. I felt that the graphic stories would have benefited by some annotations (like those Sydney Padua made use of in The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage). There were multiple places where I could tell something interesting was being referenced in the artwork, but felt blind to its significance because I couldn't stitch together what it meant.

Although I wanted that little bit of extra explanation, I did enjoy the book for the lively way it presented these women, and the emphasis on their reasons for writing. It made them feel very human and real, as opposed to distant, legendary, buttoned up figures.

A good book to inspire young female writers with the history of female writing at large. It was truly informative for young audiences and a great gateway to the literature represented in the book. That being said, the typography of the graphics were difficult to follow, and I oftentimes found myself wandering off while reading. For some of the sections, more text is needed before transitioning to the graphics, as I was left confused at times as to what I was reading.

An interesting look at the complicated lives of some of literatures most iconic authors and their legendary works. 'Why She Wrote' weaves together a series of portraits that tell the tales of the lives of female authors who sought freedom, independence and liberation challenging the strict paradigms of their time.

This graphic novel is a celebration of female authors who changed the world and redefined the art of writing. This book opened my eyes to the way female writers have inspired each other and worked together to empower and encourage in each other in pursuing their craft. A must read for any bibliomaniac!

This book is a wonderful introduction to female writers of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. With short but sweet details about each author such as Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, Mary Shelley, and many more, readers will enter the world of the female writer in a time when it wasn't considered proper for women to write. So the question must be asked: why did they? Get ready to learn the answers.

The organization of this novel is very unique--it is pitched to the reader as a graphic novel, when it has elements of both normal biographies and graphic novels. The authors begin each chapter by introducing three women whose writing or experiences were much alike. After the initial introduction, each woman is discussed individually with normal text and then the challenge they overcame or the reason they became a writer is given to the reader in graphic novel format. It was very entertaining to read about 18 women generally kicking butt in this particular fashion and I really appreciated the work that went into portraying so many different stories. Something else of note is how the women all came from different ethnic groups and backgrounds as it kept the story diverse and provided characters for everyone to relate to. The artwork lends itself to this piece by presenting an almost classical cartoon style to assist our authors in telling the stories.

I give this book a 4/5 and recommend it to YA readers as well as anyone who is looking for an introduction to some of the classics in a brief and engaging format.