Review of 'My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
And today we are going to be talking about My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness, a brutely honest nonfiction biographical manga by Nagata Kabi. Darker then I expected, considering its bright pink and white packaging, there's a bit less sex than I was expecting and a lot more material warranting a trigger warning. So if you are not currently in the place to read about anxiety, depression, self-harm, eating disorders or pathologized sexuality, you should probably put off reading this book for now. No worries, it'll still be here when you're ready.
As you may have guessed from that synopsis, and other reviews, this book is more about the author's mental health journey then who they are having sex with. Although at the same time I do think that the author is suggesting, and I am agreeing, that she pathologized her sexuality while not even knowing what it is and giving …
And today we are going to be talking about My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness, a brutely honest nonfiction biographical manga by Nagata Kabi. Darker then I expected, considering its bright pink and white packaging, there's a bit less sex than I was expecting and a lot more material warranting a trigger warning. So if you are not currently in the place to read about anxiety, depression, self-harm, eating disorders or pathologized sexuality, you should probably put off reading this book for now. No worries, it'll still be here when you're ready.
As you may have guessed from that synopsis, and other reviews, this book is more about the author's mental health journey then who they are having sex with. Although at the same time I do think that the author is suggesting, and I am agreeing, that she pathologized her sexuality while not even knowing what it is and giving birth to an entire string of mental health issues as a result. As a pansexual woman who was raised in an anti-lgbtq+ home, I can really relate to this.
Interestingly, unlike myself, Kabi seems to have grown up in a heteronormative environment that (while it didn't have anything negative to say about same-sex relationships) didn't appear to have anything positive to say either, but she ends up in an even worse situation. Obviously, there are too many variables to make black and white definitive statements about anything, but I do think this possibly suggests that thoroughly sex positive education is required for anyone to end up anywhere close to happy and healthy.
The art in this volume is loose and leaning towards the cute side. Certainly not full out kiwai or anything, but it does provide a nice balance to the darker tone of the story overall. It reminds me a bit of some of the other Josei manga I've read in the past like In Clothes Called Fat - which I would recommend to anyone who likes this comic. The use of pink to highlight different parts of the comic was also pretty on point in my book.