My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness Kindle & comiXology

10/10

A remarkable memoir of self-discovery in manga form, My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Kabul Nagata follows the artist’s life for ten years after she graduated high school, chronicling her crippling bouts with depression, eating disorders, and self-harm. It’s a dark, brutally revealing story that doesn’t promise, and doesn’t deliver, a Disney ending, but instead provides a more important, realistic lifeline: recovery from mental illness is an ongoing process, a process that isn’t always smooth but one which can lead to a deeply meaningful life that includes moments of happiness and fulfillment. The willingness of the artist to bare her soul, her commitment not to shirk from personal truths that might disturb or outrage, is courageous, bracing, and an integral part of her recovery.In My Lesbian Experience, text and image form an interactive, symbiotic relationship with each, with the whole being greater than its parts. It’s not simply a message book, along the lines of “Hang in there, it gets better.” If that were the case, Nagata might have chosen any other form - essay, fiction, or tell-all autobiography - to communicate with her audience. But in this case, using manga’s text+image storytelling conventions isn’t just a means of packaging the author’s message, they are the essence of the ideas being conveyed. My Lesbian Experience is so tightly integrated as a total work of art it can’t exist in any other way than as a manga. Notice how the drawings don’t simply illustrate the text, but go beyond the text to create a larger meaning. Nor does the text simply narrate the drawings. There’s an exquisite precision to the pacing, editing, and sequencing that speaks to the lucid consideration that every aspect of the book has been given, all to share personal insights in ways that can resonate, and, perhaps, offer solace, with others.This is not a comfortable book. There will be “AHA!” moments, true, and moments of easy empathy. But there will likely be times when you feel that the author’s neuroses or inwardly-knotted sexual desires seem too precious, too self-serving, or simply twisted. I didn’t always feel good reading it, and twice, because of its darkness, wondered, “Why bother?” In the end, however, like great art does, My Lesbian Experience compelled my attention. And the journey was more than worth it.

This was a nice copy and great art. The story was a little bit more heavy and sad then what I normally read but it is a true story so, understandably it’s not as fluffy as a yuri manga or something.

Really, this young woman has many difficulties to overcome: depression, eating disorders, cutting - each one by itself can be life-threatening. And under it all (or because of it), a crippling social disorder. I find this a vivid, endearing account of facing those problems and prevailing. I can't call it total victory. All those demons still seem to lie in wait, in the deep corners of her mind. I know, it takes a distinctive kind of strength to build your life with them in the basement.So, up in her twenties, she has enough attention left over to reach out to someone else, and finds that she doesn't know how. Cripes, not to her degree, but I know a little about that. And she finds herself almost a stranger in this womanly body she's had for so long. Not knowing how to reach out to others and not knowing what physical person to reach out with - well, I can barely imagine it. But reach out she did, engaging professional help in her search, another brave act. (Braver than I would have been.)So, although this title makes much of the lesbian experience, I found that a minor theme. Being "one of them" never arose as a cause of isolation. "Am I one of them?" never seemed to be a momentous question. She had so much else going on that attraction to boy vs girl seemed barely a footnote. (I don't demean the importance of that question. I do weigh it against larger questions in a troubled life.) BTW, if you're looking for a salacious girl-on-girl first time thing, you'll mostly find the kind of awkwardness that I (straight male) found in getting bare with my (straight female) first partners.Read it as a lesbian experience if you want to, because it is. But this resonates with so many readers because it's a collection of growing experiences shared by far more grownups than the title suggests.-- wiredweird

This is not a romance series. It's not a happy series. This series is bittersweet.I've seen people reading this expecting a happy ending when in reality the ending isn't happy, nor is it, sad, it's...real.While many english readers are turned off by the title or feel mislead, this series does deal with a woman who does for the most part identify as a lesbian and is a lonely person.She is a person who has suffered many issues in regards to her mental and physical health as well as a somewhat abusive live not only internally and externally. some of it brought on by Japan's lack of an understanding in mental health or a refusal to admit that people need it, but also from a lack of love.Nagato Kabi is a person who in some ways has never felt love and this, and it's sequels, all deal with her slowly trying to mature and grow and learn to love herself even when others dont' show it to her, and cannot find it in others as she doesn't know who or what it is she wants.She suffers from many mental health issues and you watch her struggle as she slowly tries to overcome them and in a way she does, but it also shows the failures as well. How she gets jobs and thinks she's doing better only to spiral out once again and try to pick up the pieces and you can't help but root for her, and for many like myself, identify with her as well. Identify with all she's going through and root for her as she goes on these journeys to figure out who she is and what she wants.It's not an easy series to get through and at times it's sad but it's a very human story, at times too human, but that's not a bad thing and I applaud this book and enjoy it.

By graphic book, don't mean sexual, but it is like a comic strip, drawn with dialouge balloons. Interesting, for the first time i've tried one of these.

It's a very real portrayal of adult life

It’s very good

Despite the attention-grabbing title and cover artwork, this is a comic which focuses primarily on highly relatable feelings of loneliness rather than gratuitous scenes of lesbian fun. It's a gritty, awkward tale steeped in uncomfortable truths about growing up in the modern world. The artist lays every single part of herself bare to share her experiences with the reader, depicting a world which will make onlookers wince and smile bitterly in equal measure.Please don't write it off as something only LGBTQ+ readers can enjoy, even though it's wonderful to see more serious material of that nature making it across to the UK. Whatever your personal preferences, this book takes a raw, intimate look at depression and is a valuable read for anyone who has ever felt that way growing up. The English print edition is well translated and printed in black and white with bold pink highlights, to create a striking standalone volume which will brighten up any (mature) bookshelf.One of my best buys in ages, highly recommended.

Very much worth a read, and great to see some honest representation. Heavier themes than I was expecting (such as self harm, suicide and eating disorders, I didn't do loads of research before buying so that's on me), but still humerous. Well written, beautifully illustrated, and funny and sad at the same time. An interesting story, and a relatable depiction of loneliness and dysfunction in day to day life. I have started the second book in the series, which is also very good so far and a bit lighter while remaining funny. A good comic that I was slightly unprepared for but thoroughly enjoyed, I look forward to reading the other volumes

I know this is supposed to be an autobiography but it just has some harmful really messed up stuff in it. I had to stop when I got to the section where she was talking about fantasizing about her mom breast feeding her????? What the heck? Nope, I’m out. I honestly can’t believe I read that section with my own two eyes and that it exists in such a highly rated book. I can’t even donate it because honestly this is the kind of messed up thing that makes society think us gays are perverts when we are really just normal people with a few outliers just like the straights.

Although my struggles are nowhere near as bad as the author's experiences, there were parts of this story that really struck a chord with me. I could not recommend this story enough.As an autobiographical work, My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness is a difficult but rewarding read. Touching upon sexuality, loneliness, isolation, self-hatred, eating disorders and self harm, this is the struggle of a woman coming to terms with what she wants out of her life compared to the weight of expectations other people have of her. Although her life is still not perfect at the end of the novel, you can tell how much she has grown and learnt that it's okay to be her own person. That's something we should all keep in mind.

I got this after watching Dexbonus' review it on her manga podcast. This is book was amazing and I can already say that it probably one of the best things I have ever read. I really sympathised with the character as I have had to go through a lot of the same situations. I love how raw it is. There is no true happy ending, instead there is a story of the person trying to develop to become happier.