Cartoonist Julia Wertz chronicles her haphazard attempts at sobriety and the challenging, surprisingly funny, and occasionally absurd cycle of addiction and recovery.
Wertz writes with witty introspection, punctuated by moments of bottomless sadness and crude humor, both with surprising timing ... This willingness to accept that things can still be bad even when they’re not the worst ultimately elevates Wertz’s story ... At 320 pages, the book sometimes seems bogged down by detailed accounts of seemingly inconsequential incidents, but every time it does, Wertz pulls you back in with a moment of vulnerability that turns you into an unsuspecting confidant ... There are no life-changing revelations and no epic epiphanies, but we don’t need either. Wertz masterfully turns the everyday and the mundane into stories funny enough to keep you entertained, and sad enough to leave you just a little wistful.
Wertz mines the tropes of addiction, but does so without any whiff of self-pity or self-righteousness ... Here, it’s the trifecta of perceptivity, self-deprecating humor and deadpan delivery that transforms this from a, well, “completely average” story into something that allows everyone... to join in on the fun.
Wertz perfectly captures the oscillation between wanting to quit drinking and being unable to, a dance familiar to many who struggle with addiction ... Despite these difficult elements, Impossible People is decidedly funny. The book is also uncommonly beautiful ... The contrast between the deceptively simple panels focused on dialogue or relationships and the heavily detailed storefronts and streetscapes is incredibly effective.
