Dancing at the Pity Party is, as the subtitle states, “a dead mom graphic memoir.” As someone whose dad died when I was a kid, I related a lot to this book and think it’s one of the best depictions I’ve read of the messy, chaotic, complicated process of grief. Feder’s mother is diagnosed with cancer during her first year away at college, and she dies right when she comes home after finals. The narrative covers their relationship growing up, the illness and death of her mother, and then the process of grieving and the life-long impact that having a parent die has. The overall arc moves along at a good pace and the book is very readable and clear with its messaging. I think that Feder’s pitch-perfect tone and her ability to transmit the clarity of her emotions lead to the strong impact that this work has on the reader, and this book shows the power of a graphic novel to transmit information in a very strong and immediate way.
Feder’s art is deceptively simple, with a restrained and clean line that lends itself to emotional impact without cluttering the page. The coloring is also really good, using more pastels and a pale pink as the main throughline color. The whole package is nicely put together and the hardcover book feels sturdy, which is a nice contrast to some of the cheap glued bindings graphic novels can default to using and that start falling apart the first time you use them. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and this was actually my second read-through this year. It really captures the whole messy ongoing grief process well, and I would recommend it to anyone going through grief or who knows someone who is.
Warnings for: cancer, death from cancer, grieving
