Book Review by Kevin Wolf “I love you more when you fail, because that’s when you need love more, [page 132]” Will’s mom, Elizabeth or ‘Mumin,’ tells them (Will’s pronoun) at age 15 at junior varsity hockey. A Pros and Cons List for Strong Feelings—in blue and orange—is Will Betke-Brunswick’s memoir. Pros and Cons provides stories back and forth in time from childhood to early (college) adulthood when their mother’s aggressive colon cancer was treated. Chapter breaks occur from an opening song, then delineated by months from March through December in Mumin’s last year from diagnosis to shortly beyond… Read More
Probably Nothing: A Diary of Not Your Average Nine Months
guest review and response illustration by Northwestern medical student Runjhun Bhatia Probably Nothing is, when you initially read the summary, a depressing concept. Nine months of pregnancy compounded by bowel cancer, you think. Or perhaps vice versa. How awful. The graphic novel is a simplistically drawn diary-like account of having cancer and being pregnant. Matilda’s experience could probably be a good insight for anyone with cancer or for a woman who is pregnant. The graphic novel is exhaustive — though the drawings are not detailed, the detail Matilda goes into about her life throughout these circumstances is extensive. It becomes… Read More