Decodependence
A Romantic Tragicomic
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4.5 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Author and New Yorker cartoonist Lila Ash’s vulnerable and funny graphic memoir about her attempts to decode her life's relationships through the lens of her recovering codependency.
Through her skillful, charming illustrations and a voice that is sardonic, vulnerable, and completely relatable, Lila Ash shares the all-too-well-known moments that she’s experienced navigating the world of family, love, and sex through the lens of codependency.
In her late twenties, Ash found herself reliving the relationship traumas of her past. She’d tried everything to help herself move on from painful memories, from therapy to drugs and more, before entering Codependents Anonymous (CoDA), where she discovered the characteristics of codependency—and checked off every box. Ash began drawing her way through her experiences, allowing herself to recognize the codependent behaviors that ruled her life, including:How her desperation to get a boyfriend propelled her to be sexually active at summer camp as a young teenager (codependents often confuse sexual attention for approval or acceptance).Having a crush on her guitar teacher only to later realize that he had ulterior motives (codependents struggle with setting and maintaining boundaries).Accepting the role of personal assistant rather than girlfriend in her recent long-term relationship (codependents have trouble accepting when prospective love interests are unavailable).And much more Through unflinchingly honest (and sometimes sad or harrowing) stories, a wry sense of humor, and illustrations that masterfully set the book’s tone, Decodependence: A Romantic Tragicomic will resonate with readers who are looking to better understand their own potential codependent relationship behaviors, followers of Ash's popular Instagram account, or fans of graphic novelists and cartoonists like Liana Finck, Aline Crumb, Emily Flake, Katy Fishell, Malaka Gharib, and Olivia de Recat.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
New Yorker cartoonist Ash looks back on her relationships with men and the origins and repercussions of her codependency in this candid if at times lackluster graphic memoir debut. The volume is divided into 10 chapters, each prefaced with a well-meaning but clichéd platitude ("Codependents accept sex in place of love," "Codependents want to fix the people they love"). The 29-year-old Ash lays out a happy middle-class suburban childhood upended by the messy dissolution of her parents' marriage. What follows is a series of moves, between Georgia, New York, and California, as well as "deep insecurity" and unfulfilled relationships. These early sexual and emotional incursions eventually lead to a long-term relationship with a man who turns abusive, and Ash unpacks the factors that led her to stay with him and overlook warning signs. The drawings are attractive and skillfully employ visual metaphors—red flags demarcate a partner's violent and controlling behavior; poor boundary setting is literalized by loopy marks on a page—but the script tends toward an overinvestment in therapy speak. The result is a model of one young person's commitment to understanding her own—as yet unfulfilled—road to satisfying romantic partnership. As a memoir, it's uneven, but this holds appeal to readers who are going through their own therapeutic journey.
