March 21, 2022
Grove’s debut memoir, a breezy affair even at close to 900 pages, dives into tangled questions of identity with clear-eyed, clean-lined assurance. Emma, a trans woman, visits a therapist to get approval to begin physically transitioning after a lifetime in the closet. During therapy, however, she presents as three different people—shy bookworm and writer Emma; outgoing, aggressive party girl Katina; and exhausted workaholic Ed—with shifting outfits and wigs for each persona. The therapist, Toby, isn’t sure if Emma has dissociative disorder, a very rare condition he’s never encountered in practice, or if she’s putting him on. Emma’s personalities, meanwhile, seem unaware that there’s anything unusual about their situation and remain focused on qualifying for hormones. “I do have separate parts of myself,” Emma rationalizes, “but doesn’t everybody?” As therapist and patient talk past each other, dancing around truths no one wants to face, their sessions become dangerously charged. Grove’s simple but marvelously elastic, emotive art is reminiscent of Jules Feiffer. Though there are glimpses of Emma’s traumatic past and daily struggles at work and home, the bulk of the narrative consists of therapy sessions. Yet the characters are drawn with so much personality that it doesn’t grow visually dull. With quiet ease, Grove draws readers into Emma’s world and makes them feel the complexities and contradictions of her experience. Grove proves an impressive new voice in comics.
April 15, 2022
One might think that a story largely shown in a therapist's office would be dry or clinical. In the case of the honest and enthralling The Third Person, that assumption could not be more wrong. Grove's words are frequently messy, out of order, and beautiful like so many memories. She so clearly communicates grief, pain, hope, determination, and loneliness through not only words but also the eyes, postures, and silhouettes of her characters. This visual emotion, along with the frank and vulnerable dialogue, hits even harder because the art style is so spare. The focus is on the people, their interactions, and our protagonist's inner turmoil. The conversational nature of the text and the focused art combine to make the novel a fast read, despite the hefty page count. The conclusion of the book makes Grove's dedication in the opening pages all the more meaningful in retrospect. Readers who can't get enough of graphic memoir, particularly the works of Alison Bechdel, are the ideal audience for this moving volume.
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Starred review from June 1, 2022
Grove's debut work of graphic memoir is an unflinching exploration of how our identities are formed and maintained. After a lifetime in the closet, Emma--a trans woman--visits a therapist named Toby. Emma's only looking to get doctor approval to start hormone replacement therapy, but Toby hesitates after discovering she presents three distinct personalities: timid, bookish Emma, world-weary Ed, and an outgoing party animal called Katina. While all three express their determination to start medically transitioning, Toby suspects Emma may suffer a dissociative disorder and refuses to sign off, pending further investigation. What follows are almost 900 pages of conversation between therapist and patient, occasionally broken up by flashbacks to Emma's traumatic upbringing or scenes depicting her daily life. Grove draws on her background in animation to render pages of conversation dynamically, switching angles to signal a change in point of view, and creating a sense of distance between her characters to convey their failure to understand one another, or else zooming in to create unexpected intimacy as they navigate Emma's complex experience and examine her determination to live on her own terms. VERDICT A masterfully crafted, fearlessly vulnerable memoir stressing the importance of coming to terms with trauma in order to better know oneself.
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Starred review from June 15, 2022
Writer and animator Grove's debut graphic memoir portrays her youth coming to terms with her sexuality and gender dysphoria. Closeted at 13, the author struggled with her gender identity; years later, she encountered several social and psychological roadblocks early on in her transition. She attempted to remedy them with Toby, a gender therapist who could approve her for hormonal treatments, but the road was arduous and studded with hazards. The author and illustrator chronicles her personal story via flashbacks, detailing schoolyard bullying and physical abuse at the hands of her grandfather, extreme trauma that manifested in dissociative identity disorder. In an effort to cope with the psychological pain of her past, Grove embodied several "alter" identities that were stronger and more resilient. Two examples were Ed, a male-identifying persona, and Katina, a sunny, uninhibited "party girl." Katina was the opposite of timid Emma and emerged as the more dominant personality during sessions with the shortsighted Toby, who harshly considered Katina as the "third person in the room who isn't here." The majority of the narrative takes place in Grove's sessions with Toby, who condescendingly questioned the authenticity of her ordeal, her transgender identity, and her separate personalities. Worse, he weaponized her past traumas against her. As the author continued to work to achieve clarity, a new, empathetic therapist ushered her forward. Readers will be engrossed by this candid tale of intimate transition, bravery, and a fierce determination to confront demons in order to embrace the true self. Creatively conceived, Grove's use of cartoons to tell her story is a clever choice. At nearly 900 pages, the book is a surprisingly brisk reading experience rendered effectively through the minimalist illustrations and powerful dialogue exchanges. Grove's artistry also embellishes the journey with palpable character movement and facial expressions and mood representation. While untangling the complexities and often sobering dynamics of vulnerability and identity, Grove's impressive comic journal illuminates, inspires, and educates. A deeply personal, artistic self-portrait of being transgender and becoming whole.
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