"We know very little about her." So states this book, allegedly a biography of a surrealist artist about whom I knew nothing. The issue is that, reading this, you still know nothing about her – it's far too scattershot, before eventually portraying a woman sectioned having set fire to a hotel room, and stuck with a load of sexed-up women in a mental hospital. Things don't get better for her when she comes out, even if her devoted partner is close to exhibiting her best work – or what remains of her trying to tear it all up…

Quite loopy itself, and as a lot (and I mean A LOT) of end-matter says, very quick to depart from the truth, this is almost a disservice. Certainly I felt no easy way to the woman from the early pages, and when it did settle into a more routine narrative I was still finding it untrustworthy, finding a lot of scenes and dialogue about as realistic as those autobiographers who claim to know the precise words they used in conversation fifty years back. It's not horrendously useless, but especially with the topic of someone's mental health being at rock bottom, I felt it needed more accuracy, more veracity, to honour what she'd been through. Certainly our creator's style of automatic art is spot on, to match Unica's, but I was only left wishing for a straighter, more direct and more approachable telling of her life story.

Women will be broken by men when they are young and then everything they are becomes distorted in their adulthood. Unica Zürn was a surrealist artist who was raped when she was 9 years old by her brother. She became sought after for her automatic drawings and anagram poetry and was often taken advantage of due to her mental illness.

This graphic biography of her life and works was gorgeous and as surreal as Unica’s works are. I love that the creator of this biography decided to connect more deeply with Unica but creating her own automatic drawings for this graphic novel. The artwork throughout is stunning and often a disturbing display of madness and bares the truth of the horror that was subjected to Unica in her lifetime.

I wish I had known of this artist in my studies of Art History in my freshmen year of college. Her work is incredible and her story is unfortunately a tragedy. She should be as discussed as much as the other surrealist artists of her time. Her story may be messy, but life was not kind to her. She left this world her art and it is art to treasure.

I loved this graphic biography. It was intriguing and through provoking. I highly recommend it and I recommend looking into Unica’s works and story. It is incredible.

The story of Unica Zurn's life is quite fascinating and the way art is used in this graphic novel really helps elevate the confusion and struggle that she would have gone through in her life. I also appreciate the watercolor style of the main story while intermingling Zurn's art into the pages. It helped to visually where her art stemmed from. Ultimately, it took me a little getting used to while reading to fully understand and keep up with the timeline for me, but in the end it was an interesting take on her life with the facts and mixed fiction.

DNF at 20%.
I think maybe I just wasn’t in the right headspace for this book,but I’m putting it down for now.

The author took the subject matter of portraying Unica Zürn seriously and you can see that from the care taken in the narrative and artistic choices, and the emulation of her work. I found the overall depiction a bit difficult to follow, especially the overall timelines, but I enjoyed the graphic novel enough to do my own side research into Unica Zürn to better understand the events portrayed. I do find the liberties the author (admittedly) chose to take in regards to making up events in Unica's life. It seemed like they consistently chose representing the feeling of an aspect of Unica's life in one scene very specifically over depicting multiple scenes factually. This is an interesting choice, I'm not sure if I agree with it, but I appreciated the author chose to do so purposefully from what I understand from the notes at the end of the book. I did feel the notes went on a bit longer than necessary and became rambling in a way that did not add to Unica's life or necessarily connect directly to her. Instead they seem to be focused on making a commentary about the concept of mental illness versus madness. The initial context about Unica's life and samples of her work were very enjoyable, but I think the rest of the end notes took away from my experience with this book.

This somewhat fictionalized exploration of Surrealist artist and poet Unica Zürn aspires to explore her mental illness through a kind of analysis of her works and methods. While I appreciated Céline Wagner's evocative art, I could not quite get behind this graphic novel as a whole; I personally don't love when real people's lives are retold in ways that don't feel genuine or based on truth. It also felt too vague and meandering for my liking.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review!

I learnt a lot about this artist. The art and the way the story was shown/ told was very immersive. It showed Zürn and her struggle with mental illness and how awful that can be.

A beautiful and frightening portrait of artist and poet Unica Zürn, that doesn't allow the usual graphic biography cliches, and takes a more interesting, impressionist path to tell the story of Zürn's descent into madness, both in storytelling and art.

Really quite excellent.

Betrayal of the Mind: The Surreal Life of Unica Zürn by Céline Wagner is an eye-opening and visually stunning exploration of an artist I knew nothing about beforehand. Wagner’s captivating art style perfectly complements the surreal and haunting aspects of Zürn’s life, while the intricate storytelling dives deep into her struggles with mental illness and creativity. Even without prior knowledge of Zürn, the book pulls you into her world with both empathy and intensity. A beautifully crafted tribute to a fascinating, tragic figure.

I learned a great deal about an artist unknown to me--her work, troubled life, and likely undiagnosed schizophrenia. Really enjoyed both the content of this graphic novel in its approach to storytelling and visually representing the interior life of Unica Zürn. The art is beautiful and varies widely from the style of a surreal painting to a woodcut print style. I found the woodcut print panels particularly compelling and jarringly incomplete. I appreciate the matter-of-fact exploration of Unica's mental illness, which does not seek to understand or judge, but observe. I did leave the book wanting to know more about Zürn's life, though sadly much of it remains a mystery.