Graphic Novel Review: How to Baby: A No-Advice-Given Guide to Motherhood, with Drawings

Title: How to Baby
Author: Liana Finck
Genre: Graphic Novel; Humor
Publication Date: April 30, 2024
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

A wryly personal and deeply relatable graphic memoir skewering the “traditional” parenting book to chronicle the absurdities, frustrations, and soaring joys of new parenthood--from the acclaimed New Yorker cartoonist and author

How do you know if you’re ready to have a baby? How do you know if you might be pregnant? And how do you deal with peeing all the time and being hungry all the time and fielding well-meaning but kind of insulting advice and finding a doula and being dropped by your old friends and learning why it’s called mom brain and not dad brain and the tyranny of the milestones you’re not meeting and negotiating boundaries with in-laws and realizing that your heart now exists outside of your chest and in the body of this tiny little being whose entire existence depends on the quality of your care?

To tackle these questions and many others, award-winning cartoonist and memoirist Liana Finck began illustrating her early years of motherhood, giving images and language to her insecurities, frustrations, and wild joy.

 Rating

*I received a copy of this book digitally for free and am leaving this review voluntarily*

Hello Fellow Readers,

Finck's book is not only extremely funny, but it's very relatable for me. In case you're wondering (Probably not) I am a mother to a toddler. That's what consumes my life right now. I didn't know that I needed to read (along with drawings) someone else to show me that they go through the same thing, it makes the loneliness of motherhood feel not so stifling. I really enjoyed the drawings in How to Baby, while not the most detailed it added to the ridiculousness and humor of it. 

Finck talks about all things baby, from conception to birth, to the insane pressure society puts on women to fit into the mom bubble while praising fathers for the bare minimum (or to simplify 'The Double Standard). It's all done in a very tongue-in-cheek way. This book will make you laugh and nod a long while constantly thinking 'That's exactly how it feels' 

Overall, a delightful book for mothers or future mothers (or people who maybe just want to laugh at motherhood?)