3.5 stars rounded up

Why did I do this to myself?! This autobiographical graphic novel is about the author coming home from college to spend time with their mother after her Stage IV cancer diagnosis, mixed in with snippets from their childhood so you get a full sense for who she was as a mom.

It's not as brutal as it sounds, mostly because she was clearly an amazing mother. I can't imagine a more well-adjusted way to go through something like this, and yet that almost makes it more devastating in the end.

This was a loving, lovely tribute to the kind of mother I would aspire to be if I aspired to be a mom. I imagine it was very cathartic to make.

Recommended if the premise interests you.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me access to the free advanced digital copy of this book.

This was a beautifully written and illustrated exploration of grief and gender exploration. It made me cry at my desk at work!

The bird art here both somehow lightens the emotional blow of the content but doesn't trivialize it. I'm very impressed with how much emotion the author manages to portray with birds. Also love the wonderful GNC/trans rep in the background of the main focus of this memoir.

This graphic memoir was at turns heart-warming and heart-breaking. One scene would threaten to bring me to tears, just as the next made me smile at the real humor remembered there. The art style and character choices were cute and immediately endearing. I enjoyed that the story was told in a non-consecutive timeline. It felt like getting glimpses, like I was putting together a puzzle of who this family is and their journey together.

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Netgalley.)

When Will Betke-Brunswick was a sophomore in college, their beloved mother Elizabeth was diagnosed with cancer. Will moved back home to help their family navigate this difficult journey - and, ultimately, to spend as much time with Mumin as possible. Chronicled here, their days are filled with chemo treatments, family therapy, shared "lasts" (last family vacation, last meal), and the expected anticipatory grief.

Yet sprinkled throughout are moments of joy, tenderness, and hope, as the family is so often buoyed by their matriarch. Through flashbacks, we're treated to Will's memories of their mother in happier times: deliberately breaking the kitchen sink to score a play date with her kids, or listening to HIS DARK MATERIALS on car rides home.

During this time, Will was also coming out as genderqueer; whereas mom is immediately on board, dad struggles a bit to wrap his head around it, amplifying the tension in their relationship. (Dad adopts a more practical approach to his wife's impending death - staying up late to pen an obituary in advance, for example - whereas Will just wants to live in the here and now.) In an especially sweet scene, Elizabeth makes Will a genderqueer crossword puzzle, underscoring the preciousness of their bond.

In an interesting twist, Betke-Brunswick depicts their family as a waddle of penguins, and the supporting characters are variety of different birds. While charming, this left me struggling to tell everyone apart, at least at first.

Since I read this at a low emotional point (winter blues, ugh), I expected it to hit a little harder, but it wasn't until the last dozen or so pages that I was really bawling. (The family carrying Mumin on her final passage really struck a chord.) It feels like the anthropomorphic penguins should have made me feel more connected to the material (animal person here), but perhaps it had the opposite effect?

I found this graphic novel to be very interesting, because it tells the story of the author’s experience in plain terms—while also as birds. There isn’t a grand story arc, there isn’t an explicitly named thing the readers should take away, or even explicitly named feelings of the author while their mother was dying.

It told their life as their life happened. While it might be easier to see grand events and moments in time when we’re looking back, while it’s happening it’s just the regular shuffle of day to day life and day to day conversations. This tells that story of the expected death, a non-sudden death. It made me emotional to read, overall, kudos to the author for putting their emotions and experiences into words (and birds!)

This graphic memoir kicks you in the gut. Overlapping and intertwining youthful angst, navigating nonbinary gender, the love received from parents, cancer and loss. Drawings are simple and the main characters are penguins - but somehow this works. Oh - and a wee dose of mathematics is sprinkled in.

I was initially drawn to this book because of the cover. I love Scrabble and crossword puzzles so this was visually attractive. I also enjoyed the story. It was a great read!

A deeply personal account of a family dealing with a mother diagnosed with terminal cancer. Beautifully written and touching. I liked how in between the mourning and sickness there were little vignettes of when she was healthy that we got to see.

I wasn't a fan of the artwork, which is a big appeal for a graphic novel in my opinion. The character design of having everyone as different types of birds was really interesting, but the style was messy and sometimes a little confusing.

Overall, despite my dislike of the art, I really enjoyed the narrative and the flow.

A Pros and Cons List for Strong Feelings by Will Betke-Brunswick was covered in my Fall Book Preview, where I share a curated list of the season’s hottest new titles including the books I’ve most enjoyed, the ones I’m most looking forward to reading, and the ones the industry is most excited about. This was a lovely and hard graphic memoir.
Our Fall Book Preview event is exclusively for members of our MMD Book Club community and What Should I Read Next Patreon “Book Lover” supporters. Our communities also received a printable of all the picks with ' A Pros and Cons List for Strong Feelings' publishing info and release date included.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this title. Unfortunately this title didn’t really do anything for me. The art style wasn’t visually appealing in any way, although I did find the birds funny. As a memoir it has value and meaning but I’m just not at a time in my life where it speaks to me.

A Pros and Cons List for Strong Feelings is a graphic memoir by Will Berke-Brunswick and follows their journey dealing with their identity and their mother’s terminal cancer diagnosis.

While the drawings seem simple at first glance, I feel like it actually lends itself well to the story. The story is very hard hitting and so the illustrations don’t take away any from the impact of the story. This book manages to pack a lot of story in very few words and images. We follow a present timeline but also have a few flashbacks to the past to show how the main character grew up and how much of a connection they have with their mother. The father character is painfully realistic when it comes to dealing with a child who is coming to terms with their identity and a wife who is very sick.

I was not expecting this book to tug on my heart strings like it did. I teared up quite a bit at the end. I feel like this book will definitely have an emotional impact on some people. I would compare this to a lot of other graphic novels that use a simple art style to tell a deeper story like “Everyone’s a Aliebn When Ur an Aliebn Too” and “The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse.” I know I’ll be picking up this book when it comes out.

I gave this book 3 stars because while I did enjoy it it did not feel thorough enough. I loved how Betke-Brunswick showed the story of their mother’s death. It went through from diagnosis to the after. However, I felt like they could have included more in the story. The illustrations were beautiful!

Thank you to NetGalley, Will Betke-Brunswick, and W. W. Norton & Company for a copy of 'A Pros and Cons List for Strong Feelings' in exchange for an honest review.

A Pros and Cons List for Strong Feelings was an interesting and heartbreaking read. I was apprehensive at first because of the bird drawings, but I ended up loving that aspect of the illustrations. The story goes back and forth between our MC's past (growing up genderqueer, dealing with homophobia, etc.), and our MC's present, where they deal with the inevitable loss of their mother to cancer. It covers grief and loss, talks about the strain loss puts on familial bonds, and doesn't back down from the ugly truths of loss. It was beautiful and it was unique.

My ONLY issue lies with the price of this book. It's going to be sold on the market, as a paperback, for nearly $19? I understand that authors, illustrators, editors, managers, marketers, etc., all deserve fair compensation for their work, but $19 seems steep! I am not a paperback market expert, though, so please don't think this lessens my adoration for this novel.

Will Betke-Brunswick employs the comic form in clean lines and a deceptively simple style to explore identity and questions of self. A most worthy addition to the comics shelf, and a valuable story.

Thank you to NetGalley and WW Norton & Company for an eARC of A Pros and Cons List for Strong Feelings by Will Betke-Brunswick in exchange for an honest review.

CW: death of a parent, terminal illness, cancer, homophobia, grief

A graphic memoir depicting the author's personal journey through adolescence against the backdrop of his mother's battle with stage IV cancer. Told in vignettes and snippits, this emotional book highlights the beauty and pain of parent-child relationships.

It is so hard to critique this work because it is such a deeply personal work for this author. I loved the choice they made to depict his family as penguins. Simply adorable. At times, I wished that the narrative would have been a little more continuous, but I respect the decision to share only small moments and memories. I experienced a full range of emotions while reading this book. I laughed, I felt sad, I felt dread, I cried openly. The ending was at once so abrupt, but also so beautiful and heartwarming. My heart goes out to Will for their vulnerability in sharing their story with the world.

I read Betke-Brunswick’s debut because I’m a sucker for graphic memoirs — especially ones about the death of a parent and complex family dynamics. (See Alison Bechdel for the epitome of the form.)

I so wanted to like their heartfelt tribute to their relationship with their dying mother and challenges coming out as genderqueer, but I kept wondering: where is the narrative?

They pulled together a series of vignettes, scattered snapshots in time, which together give off a vague impressionistic effect but fail to convey the reader forward on their journey with them.

The decision to render all the characters as birds, with their own family drawn as penguins, was also strange. For me, it took away from the immediacy of what could otherwise have been a much more emotionally engaging book.

(Received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

Thank you to NetGalley for an early copy in exchange for an honest review. Cover and title caught my eye, and then the synopsis clinched it for me requesting it.

For a variety of reasons, mother-child stories, especially when the child is queer or queer-coded, are very hit or miss for me, so I'm always glad to find one that works.

During their sophomore year of college, our MC gets the call that their mother has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The rest of the novel consists of present day scenes of the family and how they're coping, along with flashbacks to various ages and events, some of which have dialogue, and some are just meant to showcase a good memory.

The author depicts everyone as birds of various sorts, so the family we spend time with are penguins. This is an autobiographical novel, but I was a little confused if the author was writing through multiple layers, not only making all of the characters birds, but I couldn't quite tell if our MC was the author or a version of the author? Sort of like On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, where it's clearly the author's story, but not written as the author.

This was a fairly straight forward graphic novel, and while it didn't have as much focus on our MC's queerness, it does put me in mind of other books like Fun Home and Gender Queer.

I had issues with this working on my device. After a few pages it refused to load no matter what, which was a bit of a bummer. Regardless, what I was able to read was good. I'm going to give it a better review on Goodreads in the future. For now I'm keeping the rating at 4/5 stars as that's what I felt going into it.