The author states in an interview that Studio Ghibli is a major influence on her art and story and I can definitely see that. The art was cozy and dreamlike and used mostly warm colors. Both characters are running away from their trauma and when they meet each other bond over their negative experiences. They go on a road trip to return a cat to its owner and enter a magical world in the process, like in the Ghibli film Spirited Away. ( )

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone graphic novel that I got as a Christmas gift.

Thoughts: This was a well done graphic novel about two young women, Bea and Lou. Bea is on the run and gets Lou to help take her on a car trip through West Texas. Things dip into some magical realism elements when the landscape around them gets surreal, a mysterious cat joins them, and a group of mysterious men starts to hunt them.

This is a fairly ambiguous story at points and you kind of have to guess at what is going on. I enjoyed it a lot but not as much as Walden's "On a Sunbeam". The story is really driven by the questions of what Bea is running from, what Lou is going to, and what is up with this cat that they find.

There is some in here about sexual abuse and finding and believing in yourself enough to get help when you need it. Also there is a lot about finding people who you can connect with and get support from. The strange magical journey they go on also seems to be an allegory for the surrealistic road trip that life in general can become.

The illustration is in limited color and surreal at points, it is beautiful and a bit abstract but I enjoyed it.

My Summary (4/5): Overall this was a well done graphic novel by Walden. I enjoyed it. Although the story at first seems very simple, I find myself thinking back to it quite a bit. Of course, I loved the cat and some of the other surreal elements here. If you are a Walden fan or a fan of road trip type graphic novels with a bit of magical realism I would pick it up. ( )

I'm waffling between three and four stars.

On one hand, as always, Tillie Walden's art and colors are gorgeous. She really understand how a page is put together. Lou is wonderful - sad and messy and complicated but caring and true. It's very atmospheric, and the Patrol Police (or whatever) are unsettling and creepy.

But the plot is kind of a mess. Bea and Lou find this cat, who apparently is really wanted by the Patrol Police, who hunt them down as they race to return her. Which is fine, but why does Bea go to West and Lou doesn't? Why does Bea have the same ability as the cat? Do Bea and Lou keep in touch??

But, I'm much more of an atmospheric read than a character one, so even though the plot doesn't exactly land, it's still quite the journey. ( )

Trigger Warnings: Sexual Assault

Are You Listening is a graphic novel that follows two women, Bea and Lou, on a road trip through West Texas as they both try to process and move past their respective traumas and grief while trying to find a cat they named Diamond's home.

As a lot of Tillie Walden's novels, not much happens in the plot of this story. That's okay though because it gives all this room for Lou and Bea's interactions and friendship to grow. I do wish there was more to it at the very end, just a little more in depth, but I was still happy with it regardless.

The artwork of the novel adds an element of eeriness and beauty to the story. There's darkness mixed in with bright colors and beauty. There were plenty of panels with no conversations and those are almost always my favorite to look at. ( )

This is one of those stories where the format really worked against it. From a purely aesthetic perspective, many of the panels are too dark for me to really work out what is going on, and so I was just reading the dialogue. As a result, I never really differentiated between our two protagonists, and spent a lot of time going 'is this the teenager or the adult'?

Overall, the story is vaguely disquieting, being presented in what I think was meant to be a mostly linear format, but not actually achieving that. And maybe it was the fact that I was missing things, but it felt like there were lots of story threads not actually woven in, but just kind of dropped in.

The other thing really missing for me was a sense of place. The reader is told repeatedly that the characters are in Texas, but that means bugger all to me. It felt like just the word was supposed to evoke something, but as a non-US person, I don't have anything really linked to the word.

content warnings: discussions of historical rape; one sided perspective on teenager/parent dynamic that reads as neglect. Possibly something else I've forgotten, because it left me just uncomfortable. ( )