i'll be real here, as soon as i see a book with a piece of meat on the cover i know i'm going to enjoy it. hetland captures carolanne's delusion so well with the shifting artistic styles and colors, and the body horror and autocannibalism were just enough to be palatable even for more squeamish audiences. i kind of liked how sparse the action was because it really let me think about carolanne's psyche. gross, heartbreaking, and a very quick read.

I enjoyed this a lot, The use of color and a sparse story throughout the graphic novel made the moments or body horror even more traumatic and jarring. There are parts of this graphic novel that were disgusting to look at and off putting but they neve felt like they were there just for shock, they felt very integral to the story. Really liked this story and the art that went along with it.

what the fuck I just read. That's good, really good. I mean a women obsessed with a perfect family. All her friend are married, except her, a desired became an obsession. A normal life became a crazy, really crazy life experience. She eats herself, body parts trying to feed an inexistent baby.
That's a comics that I need to be published. Really. And Now.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

Tender by Beth Hetland is a psychological, body horror graphic novel. It delves into societal expectations for women, particularly in heterosexual relationships and how getting and/or losing what you've dream of can lead to unexpected consequences. The body horror itself, I didn't feel, was too gratuitous and served a purpose beyond simple gross out. Coupling the body horror along with the purposeful decline in the artwork in order to show the protagonist's degenerating mental health was rather effective. My main issue with the novel was that I thought it was a little too sparse in padding out the story itself. I would have loved just a little more world building or character work.

That is definitely a graphic novel! The art doesn't seem fully done yet but I'm excited to see the final product especially with an ending like that. Throughout the whole reading experience I was fully invested and actually cared about what happened to the character we follow but that is definitely an ending that will stay with me for a while now.