Rosalie Lightning: A Graphic Memoir (alkuperäinen julkaisuvuosi 2016; vuoden 2016 painos)

3.5 Still getting used to the graphic novel format and here, unlike others wish I could've read more of a memoir. This personal account shares the author and his wife, Leela's descent into grief and slow healing after the sudden death of their toddler (almost 3) Rosalie. The art is very expressive and Hart is frank about the couple's pain and their difficulty dealing with the loss. "What do you do when your child dies? You fall into a hole." There were other extreme stressors in their life at the time too -- trying to sell a NY apartment and a book that Leela was working on, relocating to Gainesville, FL and crashing with friends as they waited to find housing until the sale was final....This is a beautiful testimony to the time they did have with Rosalie and the way art and music and spirituality pulled them through a year from hell. Hart is an excellent artist and very astute about influences and ideas that make their way into his drawings. "An image is what you imbue it with" he states (214) and this graphic memoir is imbued with parental love and longing. ( )

As a book it was a well written and drawn, emotionally vulnerable, open, honest depiction of grief from the loss of a child. However, I didn't connect with it or feel moved at all. Others may find this to be a powerful book, or maybe I also would in a different time and place. For this reading though, I found it kind of tedious and distant. ( )

As a mom of a two-something year old... I am grateful to this book in that it makes me hug my baby more closely and be reminded even more of just how precious she is to me, but how life happens and continues for all of us in this world. ( )

Devastating graphic memoir wherein a father describes losing his less than 2 year old daughter.

It's not that I'm being drawn to other people's grief, but I am conscious of trying to understand loss and finding meaning in life thereafter. ( )

Tom Hart's story of his 2 year old daughter Rosalie's death is memorialized in his graphic novel Rosalie Lightning. He talks about the things that she loved, her favorite sayings and activities. He also goes into great detail describing the grieving process he and his wife shared after her unexpected death just days before her second birthday. All of his best memories became nightmares after she was gone. He continually asks the question " what do you do after your child dies?"

This is a sorrowful book. Anyone who has suffered a loss will appreciate this book. ( )