An impressive debut. Set in a beautifully evoked bygone era, it's a tale of private investigation that takes its narrative queue from the writing of Dashiell Hammett and its visual styling from American film noir

The plot writhes and twists, needing its drizzly, downbeat epilogue to draw together the many strings

Berry's ability to convey facial expressions is right on the button

[Radtke's] writing is never less than lovely, and her black-and-white drawings are masterfully eloquent: at once vivid and faded. Think Shelley’s "Ozymandias", with light top notes of Alison Bechdel and Adrian Tomine.

[Radtke is] a master of both prose narrative and visual art... In a way, what she has done in this impressive book is to revive the dead and recover the lost while illuminating a world in flux, in which change is the only constant. Powerfully illustrated and incisively written – a subtle dazzler of a debut.

Remarkable...a breathtaking mix of prose and illustration.

One of the most haunting graphic memoirs I’ve ever read... As we turn the pages on [Radtke’s] journey, we are ravaged and ravished. There is a proud tradition of graphic memoirists – of those dually equipped to wield word and image – to tell the true and deeply considered story of a life. Alison Bechdel, Roz Chast, Riad Sattouf, David Small, Marjane Satrapi, Art Spiegelman and others have done it searingly well. Add now to that list Radtke, who proves herself an equal among equals with this debut book.

With elegant writing and arresting drawings, Kristen Radtke’s Imagine Wanting Only This...grapple[s] with the limits of how much understanding our past can help us comprehend our present... She is a master of silhouette and shadow, of negative space, evoking a sense of potent isolation.

A stunning, honest meditation on loss... Radtke’s book is enchanting.

This memoir’s realisation of urgency expresses itself in human beings’ silence, which might frustrate readers of prose memoir. But here it is an opportunity for Radtke’s readers to focus, stare, wonder – to remain within urgency itself... This is a riveting use of memoir.

In her exquisitely soul-, mind-, and heart-shattering debut graphic memoir, Kristen Radtke explores life's big questions surrounding grief, mortality, and the impermanence of the things – and the people – we love most.

Radtke's life – and the way she beautifully elevates her deeply personal experiences into universal lessons – makes for brilliant, compelling, unforgettable art.

Kristen Radtke leads us through a bleak and beautifully crafted story of heart and heartbreak – creation, connection, decay, and loss. Imagine Wanting Only This is challenging and inspiring.

Writer, illustrator, and editor Radtke’s graphic memoir does something difficult within just a few minimally designed, emotional pages: she transforms the over-studied experience of being a talented artist stuck in that yearning gulf between college’s purpose and life’s demands into something unique and thuddingly real.

This is the work of a tremendously gifted cartoonist whose formal brilliance is indisputable, and whose sprawling narratives come to us via endlessly inventive pages. Rusty Brown is another masterpiece from Ware, and is unmissable.

An intriguing, insightful not-quite-biography of the Brontë which explores both their real and imaginary worlds.

A tale about the collision between dreamlike places of possibility and constrained lives. None of the Brontë would reach 40. Yet their work still entrances us and Greenberg gives their tangled early creations gripping and generous life.

A vivid foundation story for the great torrent of romantic fiction that was shortly to burst forth.