Knisley’s honesty and willingness to inspect her own behavior has long been one of the best parts of her work, and with each book that only becomes more necessary ... She’s gentle with herself when it comes to her negative emotions, but forthright about her own shortcomings and the challenges she faced with her loved ones throughout the experience ... While Knisley’s honesty about both the best and worst parts of pregnancy are compelling, what elevates the book to a must-read for those who want kids or love people who do is the context in which she places her personal experience. She outlines the misogynistic and deeply racist history of gynecology in fittingly serious and irate language, her frustration palpable and powerful. Knisley’s own traumatizing birth experience is made all the more terrifying knowing just how common that type of experience is for so many people ... Readers that are familiar with Knisley’s work will appreciate the sometimes subtle ways that her artistic skill has grown and changed as she has published her life in comic form. Although her linework is simple and feels soft thanks to its round shapes, it never feels too cartoony or overblown. Her talent in capturing likenesses is especially clear in her illustrations of her mother, husband, and Pal, and there are some exaggerated expressions that she uses to great comedic effect throughout the book, helping to cut up the heavier and harder subjects. The best way to describe Knisley’s work is human and gentle, both with the creator and the reader. The book is a reminder of how hard and rewarding it can be to grow a family, and feels like a call to action when it comes to obstetrics and gynecology’s slow erasure of parental health.

While it’s still accurate to describe Knisley as a memoirist, I now think that a different label makes much more sense, especially with Kid Gloves and her previous book, Something New: Tales From a Makeshift Bride. Knisley is an essayist. Like Joan Didion and Roxane Gay, Knisley often works towards a thesis and richly illustrates it with examples from her own life. And Knisley illustrates her essays in every sense. Knisley has always communicated directly with the reader through narration boxes, rarely telling the story through scenes and dialogue. The word bubbles spoken by Lucy the character serve as a second layer of commentary ... The rich emotional range she displays in her comics, as well as the realistic but simple clear-line cartooning, remind me of Kate Beaton and Carol Tyler. Knisley has always had a real aptitude for drawing people. In Kid Gloves, she reaches new heights of visual metaphor ... extremely personal, but Knisley has been preparing to be this vulnerable for nearly two decades ... a good read, full of pieces that work on their own while telling the story of Knisley’s pregnancy. It may be prone to tangents, but it’s very likely to have a real impact on readers.

... poignant, as painful experiences are interspersed with moments of humorous and tender truth ... Part memoirist, part journalist, Knisley maintains an exquisite dance between the personally idiosyncratic and the medically relevant. From ultrasound visits to epidural shots, Knisley builds expertly to a dramatic labor — even enlisting her husband to recall one episode she has no memory of. That scene’s visual effect is rendered without color, lending it a power distinct from all the bright, 'clean-line' art. Readers can hope that Knisley — also the author of the charming Relish — will follow up this brilliant work with memoirs about early parenthood and beyond.

Knisley’s personal journey can be compelling and quite funny ... the book, with its jaunty colors and friendly black line art, works best as an extended public service announcement. Knisley deploys the diagrammatic features of comics to break down medical and cultural contexts around miscarriage, infertility and pregnancy, along with their symptoms, and she illustrates myths as well as facts, letting them visually stack up against one another. These didactic interludes, often marked off as separate chapters, provide a charming, informative guide; the pages breathe easily, cleverly composed and uncluttered ... slangy and full of abbreviations and sound effects some will appreciate and others will not (I did). Less successful are the many moments when the book, which walks the line between cute and cloying, reproduces black-and-white photo booth strips of Knisley and her husband (and eventually their son) doing wacky, loving things for the camera ... The photographs neither add to the aesthetic nor amplify the story; rather, they present a visual layer of self-indulgence to an otherwise nuanced account.

... contains a nicely balanced mix of personal experiences and historical context surrounding pregnancies and women’s reproductive health ... In 241 pages, Knisley manages to do for her readers what generations of sex education has failed to do: she has provided an unflinchingly honest, straightforward, captivating, and often horrifying look at the way topics surrounding female anatomy and sex have been treated by experts and non-experts alike throughout history. Knisley expertly frames how that historical and perpetual treatment can be, and often is, detrimental to both women and men ... Though her memoir is highly personal and at times unsettling, Knisley is able to present her story and the research she did before, during, and after her pregnancy in such a way as to make this memoir enlightening and worthwhile to all, parent or not ... Although there is considerable white space above and below the panels, the high density of writing on same pages can make the pages appear busier than they actually are. Even so, the pages are never overwhelming in appearance ... Readers will enjoy the full volume, and while it is possible they will get equal enjoyment from both parts of the story, it is more likely they will gravitate to one portion over the other (either the personal or the research/information) depending upon their own motivations for reading the book and/or their own life experiences ... Knisley does a great job here of providing just enough information to the reader to intrigue and hopefully lead to further research and follow-up of their own without overwhelming them or shifting the focus too far away from her own story. In this, she strikes the perfect balance ... A uniquely important and touching story.

Witty and intimate ... the refreshingly frank, utterly un-sugar-coated account of her struggles with infertility and a high-risk pregnancy, blended with a lively and not un-disturbing exploration of the history of gynecology and reproductive health. It’s packed with 'plenty of drama and comedy and bodily fluids' and such under-reported facts as 'about one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage.'

Vivid, profound and visually imaginative. Throughout the story, Knisley adds levity by presenting illustrated factoids, myths and research about women's reproductive health ... Knisley is a lively storyteller, and the encapsulated charm of her graphics holds equal appeal. In both arenas, her inimitable style builds suspense and ultimately oozes with hopeful optimism.

Knisley once again writes and illustrates her life with an introspective transparency that, even for a topic as not-new as having a baby, feels totally novel ... Even in her signature neat and bright cartooning style, Knisley relays the despair of miscarriage in dark squiggles and visual metaphors ... n sharing her journey’s bumps and switchbacks, Knisley assures that there’s no perfect pregnancy story and that even a lot of strife won’t dim the joy of a child’s ecstatic arrival.

Funny and sometimes harrowing ... hampered by an emotionally detached narrative style ... The Chicago cartoonist intersperses each chronological step of her pregnancy with cleverly scathing facts about the history of obstetrics as well as the superstitions surrounding giving birth. Knisley shines in those segments, with her didactic narrative voice and clever cartooning solutions being well suited to the material. The stories about her miscarriages, a detailed account of each trimester, and her near-death experience while giving birth are all intense and intimate. However, her art is too clean and cheerful to adequately convey the intensity of these experiences. The artifice of Knisley’s narrative style clashes with the raw emotion of her hardships, making it feel as though she’s writing about someone else. The book’s most affecting moment comes when Knisley’s husband relates the story of the near-fatal birth from his point of view. If the book sags when Knisley discusses her own pain, it soars when she offers blunt opinions about the myths she’s heard or the insensitive treatment she received. Despite its tonal problems, the book is worth reading for Knisley’s fierce wit, strong point of view, and well-paced storytelling.