How I adore this graphic memoir highlighting the awkwardness of our French heroine, Bagieu! She makes it real-- your teen years suck-- self doubt, figuring out who you are, experiencing trauma, waiting to "catch up" with friends that seem lightyears ahead of you, all of it.

In this series of vignettes that paint the larger picture of her experiences, the title and cover can't be more pitch perfect for this artist/writer and provides a more sophisticated YA version of "coming of age" than the middle grade graphic novels that are out there. This hits differently in all the right ways. She puts herself out there to be vulnerable to readers because everyone can see themselves in her even if they didn't grow up in the same place or the same way. Applause for this memoir!

Agh! The third review I lost on that fateful airplane ride!

This one wouldn’t go over too well with the teens at my library.

This was a fun read, but I don't see the teens in my library picking this up to read. I can definitely see our patrons in their 20's enjoying this but not our teens.

Beautifully-illustrated coming of age graphic novel. So many touching stories. Highly recommend for older teens & adults!

While I enjoyed some of the art and stories as a whole it was not a book I would go back to again. I’m not sure if it was something in translation that I did not enjoy but I really have impartial feelings about the story. I do appreciate that she was willing to put her life and stories into art.

Super real and short read. My first graphic memoir. This is translated from French. The author coming out strong with the cat story had me in tears.... She's very real and relatable.

The illustrations were well done and I enjoyed reading it but overall the plot felt quite disjointed.

Miigweetch NetGalley and First Second Books for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

CW: sexual assault, sexual harassment, child abuse, grief/loss, death of a companion animal.

A hodge-podge of personal memories committed to comic form, I found this graphic novel interesting and very moving at times, and rather forgettable at others. Everyone thinks that turning their diaries into a memoir is a good idea, but few follow through with it, so I salute the author for her efforts. Nevertheless, the narrative, as life often does, lacked coherence at points. I would have preferred a more tidy package, but c’est la vie!

I recommend this book to readers who have no preclusions for systematic or logical connection or consistency; if you enjoy random spurts and emotional bursts to your storytelling, this novel will fit well in your reading collection.

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Netgalley. Content warning for sexual assault, sexual harassment, child abuse, grief/loss, and the death of a companion animal.)

-- 3.5 stars --

Best know for her webcomics "My Quite Fascinating Life" and "Les Culottées" (published in the US as BRAZEN: REBEL LADIES WHO ROCKED THE WORLD), French author/illustrator Pénélope Bagieu dove into her diaries to create the fifteen autobiographical comics that make up LAYERS: A MEMOIR. The result is mostly entertaining, occasionally horrifying, and sometimes downright heartbreaking.

To borrow a phrase from Michael Scott, Bagieu absolutely walloped me in the grief bone with her very first story, "Why Don't You Have a Cat? You Love Cats!" Once upon a time, Bagieu did have a cat; her name was Smokey, and they were inseparable for nineteen years. After Smokey passed, and in an all-too-relatable turn of events, Bagieu found herself unable to open her heart and home to another feline, and the almost-certain woe that would eventually entail. (It's been 794 days since my last dog died peacefully at home, and still I remain timidly and tragically dog-less. Dogsitting helps, a little.)

Some of the most moving comics concern sexual assault, sexual harassment, and child abuse. Clocking in at one page, "Florence" is as simple as it is abhorrent. (Oh, the hindsight that comes with adulthood.) "Validation" recounts the blessing - and curse - of developing boobs in adolescence, and "A Story About a Wishbone" is a rather arresting retrospection about street harassment. Perhaps most chilling is "Déjà vu," wherein Bagieu juxtaposes two instances of sexual assault that took place years apart.

Bagieu closes LAYERS with "The Comfort Blanket," which offers a nice counterpoint to "Why Don't You Have a Cat?" It's about the death of her grandmother (mother? aunt?), and how she'll always be with Bagieu - in her heart, her memories, the air around her. It's such a kind and gentle end to a book that can sometimes be jarring and macabre. I love that all of the other stories are bookended (hugged?) by these two pieces.

Overall, the collection is a bit of a mixed bag; some of the stories had already escaped my brain sieve by the time I sat down to write this review. But the comics I enjoyed are shiny little gems that I'll be carrying with me for some time. If you're an animal person, I'd recommend LAYERS for "Why Don't You Have a Cat? You Love Cats!" alone.

This graphic memoir was a collection of short stories and memories from throughout Penelope's life. I enjoyed most of the snippets, but personally, I would have preferred a more coherent, chronological telling. Overall, it was enjoyable.

Content warnings for this book: mentions of sexual assault, child sex abuse, animal death. This graphic novel was an interesting way to show the growth of a woman through several short stories discussing different layers of her life and her being. It discusses the many difficulties of life and how we overcome them to become who we truly are.

85%

A sweet snippet-based memoir; the stories aren't temporally in order, but rather exist on their own right. As a woman, many of them were relatable - those that weren't may be due to cultural differences, which was interesting in itself. I love her simple, yet expressive art style.

I rounded up my stars from a 2.5. The vignette style in this graphic memoir didn’t work for me. Some of them had powerful content. However, they didn’t seem organized that well and it felt a little underdeveloped.

LAYERS is an interesting collection of vignettes from the author's coming of age. It features beloved cats, not-so-beloved boyfriends, and the quest to love oneself. It's not a book I would keep on my classroom shelves in grade 7, but I think it would definitely be appropriate for secondary students. It would pair well with high school texts like THE GLASS CASTLE or THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER.
Content warning for sexual abuse (not graphic - although FYI there is sex on the page elsewhere).
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance digital copy. Publishes in English Sep 19/23!

This graphic memoir is a well-told look into various moments in the life of the author from childhood pets to first loves to losing loved ones. The simple art style works well for the nostalgic quality of the stories, and the format of the memoir (non-linear, dealing with a wide variety of moments that are not tied together) makes for a breezy read that most readers will find connections to in their own lives.

Another resonating read from Bagieu. Her informal, sketchy art style is the perfect fit for this memoir, recounting childhood, teenage, and adult vignettes of awkwardness and growth.

Shout out to netgalley and the publishers for a copy to review!

This was a sweet little compilation of snapshots of the authors life. I’ll admit I hadn’t read anything by her before, so I didn’t really have a frame of reference for her but I enjoyed my time reading this.

My favorite one was the one about her cat.

3.5 stars. Always round up though! Layers is a graphic novel that started with a lot of premise with the first story, relatable and heartbreaking. After that, it got iffy for me. Some of the stories were well developed and others felt rushed and/or like fluff, not the fun kind though. The lack of order or flow was alos a little off putting and made it harder to get into the next story. I liked the use of the grid that was used to show similarities and sometimes difference in events from the far past and more present past. That format intrigued me regardless of the jump from the prior story. I liked the illustrations and the sue of black & white images versus color; it made each story appear more real.

Nope. Nope. Nope. A big DNF. I appreciate trigger warnings so much. Like so unbelievably much. But anything having to do with animals and death deserve warnings as well. And no warnings for that will ever get promoted from me.

This was a quick, one day read. It felt like a series of short stories from her childhood and youth told in graphic novel form. There were many instances that felt familiar to my experiences growing up as well.
I am definitely interested in checking out other works by Bagieu as well as other memoirs in this format.

I appreciated the content/trigger warning provided by the author for sexual assault. I am still shocked that our society is okay with illustrations depicting sex to be allowed in young adult works.

I received a dARC from the publisher via Netgalley; this is my honest review.