Getting Married
and Other Mistakes

by Barbara Slate

Other Press, 2012


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"The cover says it all."
Library Journal

"Getting Married and Other Mistakes is both witty and poignant, and those who mistakenly pass it by on the assumption that graphic novel = comic book will be missing out on a great and often illuminating reading experience. Highly recommended".
Chasing Chapters

"It's a wonderfully told tale with one of those just-right endings that elude many comics works. I recommend it to my readers...and now I'm going to ever so slyly put my copy of the book on my wife's bedstand."
Comics Buyer's Guide

"Using insightful jocular graphics, Getting Married and Other Mistakes is a fabulous amusing yet serious look at a woman who has ignored self-actualization by adhering to mom’s spousal mantra of perfection. Filled with pathos and humor ...."
Genre Go Round Reviews

"I absolutely love Barbara Slate's book. ... the content of the book is serious and thought-provoking."
BlogCritics

Jo begins the book wallowing, but you can’t help but be persuaded that Slate’s bold, colorful, broad strokes – Jo’s electric hair, her matching glossy fingernails, her oversized emerald doe-eyes, her perfectly gleaming pink lip gloss – will soon enough infuse our heroine with inspired motivation. As for Jo’s memories, as disturbing as some might be, Slate’s use of simplified line drawings mostly in gray tones seems to be assurance that the past is definitely past …  and real life now happens in technicolor. Good advice for sure, whether married or mistaken: we can all strive to experience life every moment, brilliantly, boldly … and hopefully for better than for worse!
BookDragon

"Written with heartbreaking pathos—and drawn with sly humor—Barbara Slate's comic novel is a must-read for any woman who has ever been cheated on, owned a Barbie, or once believed their mother's version of ‘happily ever after’. Skip the pity party and buy this book!"
Josie Brown
author, Secret Lives of Husbands and Wives
and The Housewife Assassin's Handbook

After having been a good girl and following her mother's advice to snag a husband before she became a twenty-something spinster, Barbara Slate realized that her Mr. Right was actually Mr. Wrong and that she was living her life according to everyone's rules but her own. After twelve years of an unblissful marriage, she made her escape.

Now this accomplished comic artist lets it all out in a savagely funny and emotionally honest fictional narrative. Jo, her stand-in protagonist, is a successful wedding photographer (of all things) who has been dumped by her husband and desperately needs to get on with her life. She follows her friends' advice to get laid, see a shrink, go out more, and live a little. Nothing works. Eventually she realizes that she must stop listening to what everybody else tells her and follow her own voice instead.

Jo's struggle with female guilt and her quest for self-awareness, told in a series of hilarious panels, is the perfect book for any woman needing to take back control of her life, or remembering when she did.