Book Review: “An Age of License: A Travelogue”

Book twenty two of my 2019 Reading Challenge.

Lucy Knisley’s An Age of License: A Travelogue

With this reading challenge I am trying to expand my ‘read books’ repertoire and read more than just novels. If you’ve been following along you’ll know that I’ve been reading poetry collections a lot lately. In addition to the poetry books I’m also trying graphic novels. Enter Lucy Knisley, a New York Times best selling cartoonist and her amazing graphic novels.

An Age of License: A Travelogue is both a graphic novel and journal from one of Lucy’s trips to Europe. It’s a very insightful book that focuses on the unknown that a young woman faces when starting her adult life. Lucy is experiencing heartbreak but also seeking adventure and questioning what the next step is for herself.

Besides having the funds to disappear to Europe for a vacation, Lucy’s life mirrors that of someone my age. That’s what made me really enjoy the overall story and ultimate conclusion about being true to yourself and doing what you want to do. Each day in Lucy’s graphic journal she gets to not only explore the area of Europe she’s in but she learns something new about herself in a way.

The small stories about Lucy’s adventures were great and because of the graphic novel style the reader also got to see a bit of what Lucy saw. It adds to the reading experience in a different way. Lucy’s experiences were obviously genuine and it was nice to read about someone’s more vulnerable life incidents to learn from in a totally different way.

Overall I really enjoyed the graphic novel and would recommend it to any young girls who are just trying to figure out what the next step in their life is.

Stay tuned for my next review: I Was Here by Gayle Forman