Easily one of the most well executed graphic treatises on any subject, but most certainly concerning the tenuous relationship betwixt a mother and child. Far less narrative than Bechdel's previous foray into her family history, Fun Home, but no less engrossing or revelatory. 
 Are You My Mother? is riddled with psychological insight due to an impressive amount of research on the part of Bechdel. This never bogs down the intention of exploring her mother's artistry and the circuitous way it was gifted to Bechdel. The dozens of thoroughly examined allusions to renowned psychiatrists, children's literature and feminist essays serves only to coalesce and augment the entirety of the work. 
 It never ceases to amaze me how much I discover about my own inner life by reading about someone else exposing and scrutinizing theirs. This is exponentially more pronounced when it is Alison Bechdel doing the self-perusal. This self-proclaimed (and aptly so) meta comic nearly devours itself on several occasions just because of the extreme, tantalizing truth of its observations of itself and the implications inherent in the act of observing and the glorious hideousness of the thing so worth observing. Any near collapse is completely excusable due to numerous reminders of the awareness Bechdel has concerning the impossibility of satisfactory discovery when your mission is to know why someone makes the decisions she makes. Especially when that someone is your own mother and correlatively yourself.