My Lesbian Experience with Lonelinessby Patti MartinsonReviews may contain information that could be considered 'spoilers'. Readers should proceed at their own risk. Publisher
Credits Grade: 8 My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is an autobiographical retell of Nagata Kabi's first experiences with sex at the age of 28 with an escort agency. Straight off we learn that after Nagata left high school, her life collapsed and she constantly struggled with eating, working, cutting herself, and just plain attempting to deal with life. She reads a self-help book and begins to realize that she is attracted to women and starts the up and down roller coaster of trying to get a better understanding of herself.This was something of a difficult book to read. The feelings, the depression, the struggles were not something I could directly relate to, but you do feel that these issues were deeply entrenched and it was difficult to see Nagata suffer them. I kept thinking Nagata needed considerably more help that she was getting. The sex aspect of it wasn't particularly erotic. Nagata does illustrate her two experiences with a sex escort, but they are so riddled with anxiety, it's hard to "enjoy" that aspect of it. Even with such an intimate retelling of Nagata's state of mind, there is a still a bit of distance, we never get much sense of how any reacted to her orientation or how Nagata feels about lesbians, other than recognized she is one. I didn't realize until partway through the graphic novel that Nagata actually did manga. It was like it popped out of nowhere, and I still don't really get much of an idea of how that started or what she did, or how that helped her, although it clearly did. So the lesbian part of the novel feels very much unexplored, as is her relationships with her parents. So I don't quite know how lesbianism is perceived or thought about in the particularly time / setting this story takes place. Nevertheless, this is an extremely revealing perspective of one woman's attempt to deal with life, work, emotions and simply relating to other people. At the end, Nagata seems to come to the realization that there will probably never be a single, transformative moment that will make things magically better for her, but that it is something that all people work at. Written: January 13, 2018
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