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Thank you, NetGalley and Fantagraphics Books, for the chance to read and review Tender by Beth Hetland.
Tender is Beth Hetland's debut graphic novel. It follows the story of a woman so consumed with the desire for a perfect life that she slowly has a nervous breakdown and starts eating her own flesh. At least, that's what the blurb says.
Carolanne (our main character) has a monotonous life, but a life nonetheless. She has a cat, friends, and a job, and while she doesn't have a partner and child, she's doing okay. Lonely and fearful of the world moving on and her without these things, but that's a sort of fear that's been programmed into women. We're supposed to be off the shelf by 25 and there is something wrong with us if we aren't.
Tender is more the story of a woman let down by the support systems around her, who has a nervous breakdown because she's literally had a miscarriage, and her husband goes to therapy himself but doesn't care enough to make her go.
The chapters where her nervous breakdown is complete, where she's literally eating herself were drawn very differently. I loved that Beth used art to show us how Carolanne was doing internally!