Description:
From her father and mother's interracial marriage to her own "you show me yours, I'll show you mine" moments on the playground from drug experimentation to sexual/identity questions MariNaomi lays her inner life bare. Kiss & Tell is her funny and frank memoir in graphic form: a fresh and offbeat coming-of-age story unfolding against the colorful backdrop of San Francisco in the '80s and '90s. Through deft storytelling and charming illustration, MariNaomi carries us through first love and worst love, through heartbreak and bedroom experimentation, as she grows from misfit teen to young woman."
Brief description:
Artist and writer MariNaomi was born in Texas and raised on the West Coast. Her work has appeared in such publications as The Comics Journal, Not My Small Diary, and Action Girl. She believes in animal rights, following one's dreams, and that nice guys and gals always deserve a shot. She lives with her husband and small entourage of animal friends in San Francisco, California.
Review Quotes:
"Mari Naomi tells honest stories about her love life. Sometimes they're sweet, sometimes painfully embarrassing...but they're so genuine every time." - Bitch Magazine
"With a bold cartooning style, San Francisco-based artist MariNaomi chronicles her past relationships with boys--mostly sexual--in the self-published Estrus Comics. The current fifth issue opens with a remembrance of an "I'll show you mine if..." incident with a male babysitter; when she sees his penis, rainbows and butterflies swirl about the room. Later, she plays "marriage" with boys on her street, gets disgusted administering her first blowjob ("What are those things under his balls?! Dingleberries! Can't he reach that far when he wipes?!"), loses her virginity and gives in to butt sex. It all sounds prurient, but it's not pornographic, and MariNaomi is too smart to not slather a layer of knowing humor on top." - Bookgasm
"Kiss & Tell gets love, sex, and everything in between exactly right. Reading MariNaomi's graphic memoir is like reading my own childhood journal--if my journal were extremely funny and well drawn." - Amy Bryant, author of Polly
"MariNaomi is a true original. This sometimes harrowing tale of young love made me rock with laughter and wince with sympathetic mortification." - Armistead Maupin, author of Mary Ann in Autumn and Tales of the City
"Despite offering an abundance of convenient stopping points, Kiss & Tell insists on not being put down until you've read every sordid detail. MariNaomi's romantic resume is extensive and messy, but it's a funny and rewarding wreck to watch." - Jeffrey Brown, author of Clumsy and Funny Misshapen Body
"Girlish innocence and disarming candor mark this graphic memoir. Whether she's writing about threesomes, foursomes or the possibility of moresomes, MariNaomi exudes a sweetness undefiled by experience.... Though there are some dark interludes, this is ultimately a celebration of a girl's life, from larva to wings." - Kirkus Reviews
"This book isn't merely a laundry list of men that Mari has dated over the years; it's the earnest story of a young woman's tumultuous, hilarious and heartbreaking youth. It's also smart, funny, original and compulsively readable." - Julia Wertz, author of Drinking at the Movies and The Fart Party Volumes 1 & 2
"Picaresque, but down-to-earth, "Kiss and Tell, '' winningly marries its spare, gestural, black-and-white style to its capricious though thoughtful tone. The soulfulness and even loneliness she expresses is all hers." - Boston Globe
"Let's hear it for a sexual coming-of-age that, for all its bumps, isn't about victimology and regret. In Kiss & Tell, MariNaomi outlines in bold, woodblock-style graphic nonfiction just how a girl does it in this day and age." - Elle