The graphic images are in bold black and white with dramatic sureness of line. The drawing is concise and strangely expressive, given that most figures are done with little shading. The effect is direct, dramatic, and uncompromising. We have many close-ups of faces and hands. Teva’s, of course, also David’s (her husband). Although done as comic-book figures, we feel we come to know them. There is a wide range of composition for the graphic pages: sometimes a single image, or more, sometimes overlapping, even 12 small cells done as a Sunday comic strip in rows and columns. We find an elaborate parody in the drawing of an arcade game Whac-A-Mole; it shows the brain, a liver, bones, etc. emerging from black circles. Below we read, “There’s no point trying to cut it out, because it will just keep popping up somewhere else.” (p. 20).     
       
The supporting prose is clear and direct, with a wide range of moods: serious, playful, funny, ironic, despairing, joyful. Between graphics and prose we get to know Teva’s intelligence, emotional range, wit and wisdom, as well as her determination to live with and beyond her disease. There are poignant details, for instance rising at 2:30 a.m. for an MRI study because demand is so high in Toronto. In the machine there is a Dora The Explorer sticker inches above her face. “I focus on Dora, who smiles right back at me, ready for adventure” (p. 33).            
     
We enter the private, domestic, and personal life of Teva and David with, it seems, no taboos. When removal of her ovaries causes sudden menopause, she has many unpleasant symptoms, including vaginismus: “my vagina had just dried up and closed up shop” (p. 61). Intercourse with her husband becomes impossible. Fortunately her sensitive OB/GYN has some strategies for improvement. While he receives praise, Teva criticizes other “well-intentioned doctors [who] missed” the initial diagnosis. “Once they found a plausible explanation, the doctors didn’t bother to verify” (p. 8).  
              
The comic-strip page for “The ‘Big Change’” shows Teva’s many symptoms but also makes clear she is speaking on a microphone, presumably to an audience of women who need the kind of information she did not get (p. 58). Again, apparently giving advice, Teva, against a black background and with finger raised, warns, “You get lulled by the casual optimism of nurses,” when treatment failure is always possible (p. 71). The author’s note at the end says that she speaks “publicly on behalf of the metastatic cancer community,” does commentary on radio, and writes and draws for print media. And now this book!            
As a cancer survivor (of a much less serious but nonetheless frightening cancer), I could easily relate to the mental turmoil of the disease, the treatment, and the caregivers who were merely technical without recognizing patients’ emotional needs.    
               
The book’s range of topics and moods, its double-barreled and effective use of comics and prose, and its sensitivity to many factors in illness and treatment make this a highly recommended book.