Welcome to Litsy!

16-26 Jan 24
Fearing she will never pay off her student loans, Nova Scotian Katie heads to the Canadian oil sands where there is plentiful work for high salaries. When she arrives it becomes apparent that she is one of a very small minority of women living in a place of toxic masculinity. She is at one point subject to sexual abuse and is constantly facing harassment, as are the few other women at the plants.
Beaton‘s comic-strip style is engaging

I've long loved Beaton's literary and historical comics, but I was not expecting the emotional resonance of Ducks. Beaton spent two years in Canada's oils sands as a means of paying down her college loans. She chronicles the isolation everyone feels in these far off camps and the unique horrors the few women that take these jobs on can face.

Really lovely graphic novel. Does a good job of showing nuanced views of a variety of complex issues. Liked the animation style.

I liked and recommend this book despite its many flaws. It was too long and tried to cover many different and complex topics and didn‘t do any of them justice. It went into the minutiae of Beaton‘s day to day in the oil sands; conversations between coworkers that had some significance to Beaton but not to the reader. Despite all that, as one of few women in the oil sands, Beaton‘s voice gives a unique perspective to that environment.

Truly great graphic memoir: Kate, at 22, has a college degree, but no job and a huge debt to repay. She travels to Alberta to work in the oil sands. Her art succeeds in portraying the bleak view there, as well as the beauty of Northern Lights. Many themes are in play: trauma (physical, sexual, emotional), loneliness, environmental damage, rampant cocaine use, and exhaustion. Well done

#OutstandingOctoberReadathon Day 2
#RushAThon Day 15

5⭐️ To say that I enjoyed the book would undermine the story that Ms. Beaton told in this #graphicnovel. What the author tells is a very powerful story, despite the complicated nature of the story. It‘s really hard to pin down what I liked about the book. But I think it was her being honest about went on in the camps in northern Alberta which made it a winner for me #2023 #nonfiction #memoir #bookreview #bookstagram

Soccer season returns! ⚽️
This was a powerful graphic memoir from Beaton, who worked in the Canadian oil sands, where men outnumber women 50 to 1. This creates an atmosphere ripe with sexual harassment, and even rape, all covered in this book. Though it‘s a tough read, it felt raw and honest, but with moments of brevity. I gained a new perspective of Canadian geography and culture as well as environmental issues from the oil sands. A great read!

3.5/5 ⭐️ This was a soft pick. A lot is depressing and all the sexual harassment is frustrating. The author makes it honest, yet hopeful. There's no way I would or could ever do that job in that environment.

It's Pony!! :)

My review of this book can be found on my YouTube Vlog at:

https://youtu.be/bQb9BkPIS54

Enjoy!

I‘d been a fan of Beaton‘s webcomic for a long time, so I was intrigued when I saw this graphic memoir. It‘s very well done, and also infuriating in the ways I sort of expected from a story about a young woman going off on her own to work in a largely unsupervised and heavily male-dominated industry. CW for sexual assault. But there are also moments of the sublime, particularly in how Beaton emphasizes landscape in certain larger panels.

I really wanted this graphic memoir to be a pick, but I felt that I was kept at a distance as I read about Kate Beaton‘s experience working in the oil sands for 2 years. In a work place where there are 50 to 1 men to women, there will be a lot of sexual harassment and she was even raped twice. But I felt that something was missing in getting me engaged in her story

5th book finished for #RushAThon

The foil inlay under the dust jacket of Kate Beaton‘s DUCKS is pretty great. And just pretty.

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5🌟/5🌟

Wow! I blew through this in a few hours this morning. Very deserving of the Eisner

Really lovely graphic novel. Does a good job of showing nuanced views of a variety of complex issues. Liked the animation style.

I know I‘m late to the party, but I can see why this won Canada Reads this year! I don‘t read a lot of graphic novels or graphic non-fiction, but this one is pulling me in with Beaton‘s nuanced musings and killer sense of humour. #canadareads

What an amazing story. It took courage for Kate to write this. This truly should become part of the Canadian canon!

Next month I am going on a 2-week road trip through B.C. and Alberta, I have been shocked that in my 300 TBR pile at home I have zero unread books by authors from this area, and no books set in this location.

Any recommendations? I think I am going to pick up the tagged, and maybe re-read some Emily St John Mandel? Goodreads lists have not been helpful.

Just based off the cover and description, this isn't something I would usually pick up. Ducks is a graphic novel written and illustrated by the author, a female who worked in the male dominated oil sands industry in Canada. I liked this because I could relate to it, having worked in male dominated warehouses. I wouldn't recommend to all, especially those sensitive to sexual harassment/abuse, but it's a good glimpse into a different walk of life.

It‘s 90° and humid out here in Virginia. I am now inside in the AC, reading Kate Beaton‘s Ducks while eating watermelon granita with tajin.
I‘m freezing ?

Graphic memoirs & nonfiction are some of my favourite things to read; I've gone over the small list of what I've read & there's almost nothing I've disliked. Kate Beaton's Ducks is a recent entry in the genre/form. I found it incredibly hard to read in terms of what it exposes (the dark underbelly of capitalism, colonialism, sexual violence, working class lives) but also a compelling page-turner. I thought it was both elegant & respectful that

I have so much respect and regard for the graphic novel format. I‘ve only read a handful and each time I finish one, I think about how I‘d like to read more of them. And then I do not read more of them. 🤔 Anyway, this is a dark and sad and truly well done glimpse into a life outside my own. I had a hard time identifying what might be a chapter change and didn‘t keep up well with who‘s who…but that‘s probably on me and not the author/artist. 4⭐️

This expansive yet claustrophobic graphic memoir is superb.

Kate, buried in student debt, heads west to work on the oil sands camps. What follows is a deeply nuanced examination of how this environment can bring out the absolute worst in men - but also it's about mental health, isolation, how toxic work environments are toxic from the top-down not the bottom-up, about solidarity, about home, about the Earth, and a lot more.

CN: rape on the page

This book is pretty grim, but there are some great moments of humour.

This graphic memoir of an arts grad who goes to work in the oil fields to pay off student debt is excellent.

Add someone who also worked in an (at the time) male dominated field, this little exchange is very relatable

I don't have much to add to all the accolades this graphic memoir has already earned. It's simultaneously a very personal, specific story and an exploration of larger issues including worker exploitation, gender violence, colonialism and climate change. Brilliantly done! I am from Atlantic Canada, (NB not NS) which probably made it resonate even more. You can't live here and not know people who've had to leave to find work.

Fun, shocking, thought-provoking, pretty, weird – Ducks is all that and more. It took me a while to appreciate Beaton‘s slightly more disjointed, episodic approach to story-telling, but when I did, I couldn‘t put it down.

Exceptional graphic memoir. Nova Scotia native Kate Beaton worked in the Alberta tar sands for 2 years to pay off college loans. She explores the effect environmental destruction, dangerous working conditions, isolation & lack of social structure has on workers, how many men there become the worst versions of themselves, and the impacts on women working there. It‘s both a sledgehammer of a book and also a very thoughtful, nuanced memoir.

Maybe the best graphic novel I‘ve ever read. I didn‘t know much about the oil industry in Canada before reading this.

Kate wanted a quick way to pay off her student loans, so she got a job far from home at the Alberta oil sands where she knew she could make a lot of money quickly. No one warned her about how difficult the isolation and the misogynistic treatment she‘d be subjected to would be.

Content Warnings

I am joining the large chorus of voices saying this book is fantastic. I really liked Kate Beaton‘s use of the graphic novel novel format to tell of her experiences working in Alberta‘s oil sands. She writes with insight and compassion, resisting simple judgments of others. This book deals with a lot of heavy content but the comic irony in many of her observations helped it from seeming too heavy. Highly recommend. (Note: a number of CW apply)

This is amazing and deserves all the hype. CW: sexual assault / rape, and repeated mentions of substance abuse (although addiction is not depicted on the page).

Only a dozen pages in and this is just …wow!

https://youtu.be/BmAbx1HzHW0

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Intro

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BookTuber shout-out

Weekly highlights

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton

Trespasses by Louise Kennedy

DUCKS came in for me just in time for the first day of Canada Reads! Gonna get through as much of it as I can before I watch today‘s debate.

Just as excellent as if heard and as I expected. I suspect this one will linger.

Currently reading for #CanadaReads2023. A memoir told in a graphic novel.

As I expected, there‘s a lot in this book. It is a memoir, both broad and deep, of Beaton‘s attempts to pay off her student loans by working at oil sites in western Canada. She tackles the sexist environment that comes with such a huge ratio of men to women (content warnings for the whole spectrum of misogyny, up to and including rape). Her artwork is beautiful. It‘s also fun to see bits of her developing online comics career!

Heck yeah, Katie! 🩸😂

I‘ve had high tea at the Empress! 😁

This book is much bigger than I was expecting! I guess I‘m in for a lot of story and beautiful artwork.

Ducks is a thoughtful, sometimes harrowing and sometimes amusing graphic novel memoir. I was particularly entertained by this panel where Kate won‘t close her purse with feminine hygiene products in it because she likes how they make men uncomfortable and then gets called an anarchist.

I thought I‘d read Ducks this evening. I didn‘t know Kate Beaton was from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. My mom was from there, and she said the same thing Beaton says — that to make a living you have to leave. I love Cape Breton, so this makes me sad.

Loved this. 🎂

A deep love for home, and the knowledge of how frequently we have to leave it to find work somewhere else.

A sensitive treatment of several hot button issues, that manages to be an intimate, honest portrait of a time in a young person's life as well.

Too damn early in the morning face!
Kudos, Kate Beaton, you nailed it.