 Spent, by Alison Bechdel.
For many years, Alison Bechdel had a niche sort of fame in the LGBTQ+ community for her comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For. Some people heard of her via the Bechdel Test, which grew from a throwaway line in the comic. But it was her graphic memoir about her funeral director father, Fun Home, that brought her mainstream fame, eventually becoming a Broadway musical. Spent is a satirical version of what celebrity did to Bechdel's life. Although the main characters are Bechdel and her wife Holly, the story is clearly fictionalized. Fun Home is now Death and Taxidermy, the story of her taxidermist father, which becomes a TV show. Bechdel is flabbergasted by the way her memoir has been changed, including adding...dragons? Bechdel's friends in Spent are characters from Dykes to Watch Out For, including an aging couple who decide they want a bisexual throuple with the woman they've both been fantasizing about. However much the details may be fudged, the heart of the story is undoubtedly real: the struggle between wanting success and not wanting to sell out. How to sell a book critiquing capitalism on Amazon, a company she skewered mercilessly in her comics? Like Mo in Dykes to Watch Out For, our heroine wants to singlehandedly save a world that doesn't necessarily want to be saved. Popsugar Reading Challenge: Sapphic comic. 52 Book Club Challenge: Grumpy/sunshine. Booklist Queen Challenge: About female friendship.
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