Long story short, I think this might be the best graphic novel I have read this year. I'm a bit surprised to see some of the other reviewers on goodreads that I follow not agree with me, but I guess I can see where they are coming from. The page layouts are just too good for me to not continue to think this is the best graphic novel I've read this year so far though.
To dig into some sort of explanation here, no matter how biased, I would like to highlight the way in which large bodies of text are laid out on the page. Instead of trying to mash traditional book ideas about text together with comic book ideas about text, which is how I'm choosing to describe long-winded introductions in all caps lettering fronts, Walden paces the text across the page just like she would images. This helps the text feel more expressive and less dead on arrival - at least to me, someone who finds it difficult to concentrate on long strings of text. I also just realized that Walden is not writing in all caps, which I (in retrospect) think is a wise choice when going with a more handwritten font, although it can certainly work both ways.
Page layout and pacing, both of images and text, is definitely a highlight of this book for me. Which strikes me, perhaps only because my memory is so bad, as a tad bit unusual for a memoir comic. And while it can seem a bit cold to focus too much on such a technical issue, it really helped build the emotional impact of the book.
While I should pay more attention to how colour is used in books with more colour, the use of an accent colour in a mostly one colour comic is hard to miss. That said, if you've gotten this far in my review you can probably already guess I really enjoyed Walden's use of colour in Spinning. Very readable and building the feels in concert with all the other technical elements of this comic.
My only real complaint about this graphic novel is that I sometimes had a hard time telling the skaters apart and even tracking which one was Walden. That said, I guess that was sort of the point of their uniform. Still, could have been nice.
Focusing in on the more writerly side of things, I do agree with one of the more negative reviews (relatively speaking, still very positive overall) is that Spinning is much more focused on the events of Walden's life rather than any sort of analysis. Personally, I kind of think that both aspects can be very important, and that memoirs that focus on either or both can all be equally good. It will be interesting to follow Walden through the rest of her career but I don't think this book should haunt her. On the other hand, if she had spent too much time analyzing her life so far and possibly come to some bad/wrong/weak conclusions that really could have dated/harmed this book.
While, again, it does seem unfortunate that Walden dedicated so much of her youth to something that seems to have been a huge detriment to her life I feel like this pretty relatable. Being shoved at organized sports is a reality that I feel doesn't get expressed very much on the artsy side of things. Plus, learning a bit more about ice skating balances out the more emotional side of things quite nicely.
In conclusion, it was interesting to read this so soon after finishing up My Brother's Husband and My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness. My concept of hysteria kept coming to mind as I read this comic and I can't help but wonder how much damage ideas can do to us physically, even when we don't fully realize what our brains are doing...