A hilarious, consistently clever account of the author's struggle to complete her PHD. -- Rachel Cooke * Observer, Book of the Year *
[A] delightfully expressive graphic novel... laced with dark, self-deprecating humour... Riviere's languid linework transforms Jeanne's daily grind into spot-on visual metaphors... What could be a rambling plunge into misery instead unfolds as a truthful, witty tale, relatable whether readers are Ph.D., ABD, or neither. * Publishers Weekly *
In a genre still dominated by boys/men with super-exciting lives, this tale of an intense, anxious young woman pulling her hair out over the credibility of her labyrinth-motif angle on Kafka makes for an unusual, but very funny and satisfying read. If you're looking for the female Woody Allen of graphic novels...this could be the answer. -- Jane Graham * Big Issue *
Quite possibly the funniest book about academic life since David Lodge's Changing Places. How brilliantly she captures its veiled bitchiness; how expertly - yet lovingly too - she sends up the silly cul-de-sacs of scholarship... This is a book for anyone who has ever laboured under a deadline... Put off what you intended to do today and go out and buy it, right now. -- Rachel Cooke * Observer *
A hilariously accurate satire of academia, and a wrenching portrait of obsession. -- Stephen Collins, author of 'The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil'
A tale of procrastination, played for laughs both visually and narratively. Paris - both exterior and interior - is drawn beautifully... The book demonstrates an amusing honesty about the world of education from both sides. -- Peter Redrup * Quietus *
A sharp new graphic novel exploring the perils of postgraduate life... [A] darkly comic book. -- Matthew Reisz * Times Higher Education *
Funny, troubling and close to the bone for anyone with a life in academia... Riviere is a master of humour and heart-breaking honesty. -- Roma Havers * Mancunion *
Caveat: do not read this wry and ever so well observed graphic novel if you have just this second committed yourself to a three-year PhD. The rest of us lucky pups who left academia behind decades ago - or never moored there in the first place - will have a whale of a time, but you will probably cry. -- Stephen Holland * Page 45 *
In a similar vein to Posy Simmond's Tamara Drewe, Riviere uses a classic text to illustrate the modern world. The gates of Kafka's imagination become her own. -- Mollie Davidson * Forge Press *
Riviere's gags are all visual, using her artwork to give impressions of what characters are thinking and feeling, in a way that is both recognisable and inventive... a witty and intelligent book. -- Steff Humm * Ink *
I credit this book with helping me to drag myself out of a recent PhD-related slump and I think that it deserves to be widely read... it is the most enjoyable - and the most painfully accurate - book on academia that I have read. -- Krystina Osborne * Postgraduate Contemporary Women's Writing Network *
If you like comics, if you have a PhD, then we would say this book is very definitely for you. * Bookmunch *