Beautiful Boy is a memoir about meth addition told from the point of view of the addict's father. As any parent could imagine, watching one's talented, athletic, and smart child fall into a horrible addiction is heart-wrenching. David Sheff is a parent who many of us strive to be—loving, engaging, and well-educated--but this does not prevent his son from becoming an addict.

The Voyeurs is a memoir of five years in the life of Gabrielle Bell.   It collects episodes from her series Lucky, in which she travels to Tokyo and other places, but it centers on her life in Brooklyn.  Bell gives us a glimpse into the life of an artist who is more often watching and recording her friends and others rather than experiencing life herself.  The illustrations are wonderful. 

In the follow up to her successful memoir, "Fun Home", Alison Bechdel tackles the complicated relationship she has with her mother in this highly personal graphic novel. Juxtaposing her revelations about her mother with the theories of psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott and author Virginia Woolf, Bechdel creates a multilayered account of her childhood, personal and professional life. Her interest in psychology sets the stage for a rich analysis of her dreams, therapy sessions and the personal struggle behind the book's creation.

Jenny Lawson, best known for her side-splittingly funny, irreverent blog at thebloggess.com, delivers more of the same here, in her (mostly true) memoir.  Jenny grew up poor in rural Texas, the daughter of a taxidermist father whose idea of a good joke was making puppets out of roadkill.  An outsider who later struggled with eating disorders, anxiety, depression, and now rheumatoid arthritis, she recounts the trials and tribulations of her life in a no-holds-barred, double-barreled, profanity-laden manner.

Cartoonist Marisa Acocella shares her personal battle with breast cancer in a way only a New Yorker can in this illustrated memoir. On the eve of her marriage to a handsome Italian restaurant owner, Marisa finds a lump in her breast and it feels like everything she loves is about to be sucked into a black hole. But with courage, her faithful fiance, slightly crazy Italian mother, brutally honest friends and a little dose of fashion, she manages her eleven month treatment with grace and more than a little humor.