After years of this being on my TBR, my husband discovered it and really connected with it. Bechdel is even more analytical with this book than the one about her dad, bringing in psychology scholarship to examine her life and relationship with mom. In one panel her therapist suggests her childhood diary was a way to distance herself from what was going on, and I felt like that summarized her style with this book as well.

Dense with psychology/psychiatry references, with a refreshingly large and sometimes obtuse vocabulary compared to some of the stuff I've read recently. I enjoyed its down-to-earth everyday happenings, described in big words, and the intense analyzation of emotions, abuse & neglect, the processing of that, and the decision to move forward in hope.