The Secret to Superhuman Strength

Alison Bechdel's such a brilliant comic book artist.

Laura Marling, Observer

The long-anticipated return of . . . one of the most acclaimed authors in the genre, this should be one of the year's highlights.

Kate McHale, Bookseller *Graphic Novels Spotlight*

Every bit as deep, searching and multi-layered as Bechdel's previous efforts . . . The new book is fun, too . . . A sort of very sweaty A Portrait of an Artist.

Tom Tivnan, Bookseller

Funny and moving.

i

Everything you'd expect in a work from Alison Bechdel: wry, insightful and multi-layered. It even almost made me want to do some exercise.

Matthew Dooley, winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize 2020

Drawing is often seen as a cartoonist's primary skill, but Bechdel can also really write . . . Fresh, clever and moving . . . It [The Secret to Superhuman Strength] is probably her most beautiful [work].

Lucy Knight, Sunday Times

Astonishing . . . How on earth does she do it? The ingenious concision, the warmth of feeling . . . I cannot hope to capture all that this extraordinarily generous and roomy book contains.

Rachel Cooke, Observer, *Graphic Novel of the Month*

Alison Bechdel's literary, illustrated dive into a lifetime of fitness fads - from skiing to karate to yoga - is characteristically expansive and profound.

Vanity Fair

Astonishing... Through her precise drawings, we can feel the yearning for a sense of equilibrium, an attempt to abolish the dissonance of being fully alive while racing down a ski slope, at the same time knowing with certainty that one day she will die.

Fani Papageorgiou, Financial Times

Gorgeous...The Secret to Superhuman Strength feels perfectly pitched to meet the nervy uncertainties of our almost-post-lockdown moment. It's a wise, wry, generous look at selfhood, ageing and mortality, a sort of hymn to transformation, to the importance of forging connections and the necessity of letting things go.

Sarah Waters, Guardian

The Secret to Superhuman Strength practically glows with a beguiling mixture of intellect, warmth and humour, the suppleness of which is helped by a surprisingly lavish use of colour.

Lucy Scholes, Daily Telegraph

An astonishing graphic novel/memoir.

Simon Kuper, Financial Times, *Summer Reads of 2021*

A multi-layered book that is both wildly witty and deeply wise.

David Robinson, Scotsman

A tender, witty and poignant look back at a lifelong obsession with fitness.

Paula Hawkins, Observer

An astonishing graphic novel/memoir whose precise drawings capture Bechdel's life-long hunt for transcendence through physical exertion.

Simon Kuper and Murad Ahmed, Financial Times, *Books of the Year*

The biggest event of the year was the return of Alison Bechdel... Bechdel's previous books have made her one of the superstars of graphic fiction, and this funny, perceptive and merciless account shows that...her talent remains undimmed.

James Smart, Guardian, *Books of the Year*

The Secret to Superhuman Strength... demands to be reread immediately... and does the reader far more good than a Peloton class and a cup of turmeric tea.

Rachel Cooke, Observer, *Books of the Year*

A joyful book, a feast of colour, wit and ideas about living in ever-changing times

Max Liu, iNews, *Books of the Year*

The brilliant cartoonist traces her own history of (sometimes obsessive) exercise in this stunning graphic memoir.

Bill Hayes, Reader's Digest