My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris

I read My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris and it was a pretty intense read to be honest. The story has so many layers! It draws you in and hooks you to the point that you can’t stop reading it. The style was super interesting too, with the ball point pen illustrations on lined paper. I also liked how a lot of the pages didn’t have borders or panels and one thing sort of blended into the next. I think showing things bleed into one another on the page really helped reflect how things bleed into one another in the story itself. It’s not only about her childhood and viewing herself as a monster of sorts; it’s about her mother’s cancer, her brother’s anger and lies, her sexuality, being bullied, her dad leaving, discrimination, and so many other issues all surrounding the one main storyline of Anka’s mysterious death and her horrible past, having experienced the Holocaust. It’s so crazy to me that there is so much going on in the story, yet it’s still so clear and enticing. I looked it up because I figured it had to have been based on a true story and I read that Emil Ferris did base it off of her childhood. I don’t know how much of it is her life and how much is fiction but the story just feels so real. The amount of depth in it makes you feel like you are Karen. It’s so immersive and personal and I think the style in which it’s drawn really adds to that. Like I said, the ballpoint pen and lined paper is just something you never really see. But it really makes it feel like you’re reading someone’s journal. Like you’re directly connected to the thoughts and experiences of Karen. It really helps set this apart from other graphic novels and I find it really inspiring when it comes to experimentation in comics.