Stitches by David Small

Stitches is a memoir of David Small's life revolving around his cancer and his family's extreme dysfunction. This was such a great graphic novel and I really want to do it justice in a review but I don't know if I know enough to describe what I liked about it, but here I go.

The main body of the memoir starts when David is young and goes until high school with periodic skips in time, and a brief period of his adulthood. The slightly messy art style fits the tone of the story; almost like you can feel how the craziness he was experiencing was affecting his mentality through the illustrations. I also felt that the expressiveness of the illustrations and the dialogue selections helped me understand his feelings, without needing him to spell them out with thought bubbles. He also gives the reader brief sections at the end so you can find out what happened to various members of his family and how he straightened his life out. While this was all obviously a very painful time in his life and generally a dark memoir I really think it's a worthwhile read.

I hope I gave this book justice and other people give it a try.