School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-Long before she was a singing icon, Ellen Cohen was a middle child in an average Baltimore family. Shortly after finishing high school, she went full-force into her quest to become a musical star, adopting the moniker Cass Elliot. Set primarily against the backdrop of the 1960s, this book begins as an exciting discovery of an emerging talent but concludes as a somber examination of themes such as lust, body image, family, and broken hearts. Bagieu injects the melancholy, chaotic account of Elliot's young adulthood with vibrancy. The lack of coloration, the light pencil work, and the long, swooping strokes imbue the narrative with a frenetic sense of motion, evoking the feeling of beat poetry. Although this is a biography-complete with a bibliography-the author crafts story arcs out of the singer's past to closely emulate the pacing of fiction, making this selection approachable for those unfamiliar with Elliot's group, the Mamas and the Papas. Bagieu tells the tale through the perspectives of those around Elliot, leaving readers to form their own opinions about her. Because of the depiction of drug use and the inclusion of some nudity, this title is more appropriate for mature readers. VERDICT Recommended for older teen collections, this superb addition is sure to be a future graphic novel classic.-Matisse Mozer, Los Angeles Public Library © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Before she was Cass Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas, she was Ellen Cohen, whose parents ran a Baltimore deli and fostered her love of music. French graphic novelist Bagieu (Exquisite Corpse, 2015) tells Cass' pre-fame story from the perspectives of many who knew her. Her little sister says it was her arrival that made Ellen eat and eat to please their parents. A classmate believes Ellen when, the day they met, she tells him she's going to be a star. Later, Michelle Phillips wishes Cass saw her as a friend, not a rival, while John Phillips insists Cass has no place in their band a fight he loses when a record executive declares it's Cass who makes their sound complete. This testimonial approach a woman's story told by everyone but her works, thanks to Bagieu's fascination with her subject. Her pencil-sketched characters are distinctive and emotive (and occasionally high and big-eyed), while their lively world is storybook-cute and highly referential to the music Cass made so familiar. Have headphones at the ready.--Bostrom, Annie Copyright 2017 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
I moved to America in 1991, after a childhood in the culturally isolated U.S.S.R. This is my excuse for having Grand Canyon- size holes in my knowledge of pre-1991 American pop culture. Until last week, I possessed minimal awareness of the group called the Mamas and the Papas, beyond the fact that I'd heard the name, and that my daughter may have played "California Dreamin'" when she took a few guitar lessons in elementary school. (Or maybe it was "Hotel California" she played, by that other group?) I didn't even know how many Mamas and Papas there had been (there were two of each) when, with some trepidation, I picked up Pénélope Bagieu's biography of Cass Elliot, a.k.a. Mama Cass. The story begins in Baltimore, in 1941. A Jewish family is listening to Roosevelt's address on the radio, and the only person in the room who is "not panicking at all" is the baby in a young mother's arms. This baby is Ellen Cohen, who would grow up to become Cass Elliot - a talented and passionately determined singer with a wicked sense of style and humor, a woman who keeps her spirit despite repeated rejection she faces for a single, cruel reason: She is fat, and she doesn't care to try o lose weight. Bagieu narrates Elliot's early life chronologically, from alternating points of view: of Ellen's little sister, her singing teacher, her best friend, her bandmates. A brilliantly affecting chapter is told by Ellen's adorable, if somewhat Jewishly stereotyped father, Phillip. Phillip is 42 years old and very recently dead. From beyond the grave, he watches Ellen attend his funeral, come home, undress, put his overcoat over her naked body, smoke a joint and curl up in her childhood bed. It's the tenderest depiction of grief. Phillip is Ellen's biggest ally, a person who taught her to love music. "That's how she is, my Ellen," he says. "She's untamed." Here, "untamed" is unambiguously a compliment . The only person who loves Elliot more than her own father is Pénélope Bagieu. Her drawings are suffused with delight, like when she shows Ellen's first singing lesson with her teacher, Shirley. "She had this kind of bulky body that she didn't know what to do with," Shirley says. "And then. All of a sudden. There wasn't a body anymore. There was only that presence. And that voice. That voice!" The sequence concludes with a full-page drawing of the stunned Shirley staring at the huge teenager in front of her, who'd just finished a song, and now stands splay-legged, grinning and half-bowing. Bagieu's medium is graphite, and she uses its entire range of possibilities: from looping lines to richly built-up shadows that allow for lyrical depictions of snow, moonlight, cigarette smoke. Exuberance and sadness coexist in her drawing style, as they coexist in the character of Cass Elliot - whose every moment of joy and perseverance seems to overlay deep loneliness and vulnerability. Bagieu is a deftand generous storyteller. She is funny, but she also brings an emotionally unflinching French sensibility to writing about relationships. The book ends in the mid-1960s, as the Mamas and the Papas achieve fame, and a 24- year-old Cass is finally accepted as a true member of the group. Yet the highly dramatic final chapter also makes it clear that it's also the beginning of their end. I have no idea how close Bagieu's reimagining is to the real events of Elliot's life, or if the Mamas and the Papas nerds would argue with her interpretation. All I know is that it made me fall in love with Bagieu's Elliot, an irrepressible woman who persisted in a hostile world.
Library Journal Review
Ellen Naomi Cohen (1941-74), the self-dubbed Cass Elliot, spread her beautiful contralto and extravagant personality across the pop music scene of the 1960s and 1970s as part of The Mamas and the Papas and, later, as a solo act. Here, Bagieu (Exquisite Corpse) packs in all the relationship drama, body shaming, and bouts of intoxication (in multiple senses) that fed into Elliot realizing her dream to be a superstar. Large in body and personality as well as in vocal charm, Elliot gained fan adulation more readily than friendship or love. Today, her persistence and self-confidence encourages women-and men-to mobilize their talent despite setbacks. Narrating from the viewpoints of those close to Elliot, Bagieu drew the entire story in free-spirited black pencil that metaphorically references the spontaneity of those decades. The sassy, fluid art creates a slightly fictionalized yet paradigm-shifting portrait of the star as she might have wanted to be remembered. VERDICT Elliot's story will charm boomers who remember the original songs as well as younger ages who can easily identify with Elliot, her starry eyes, and her struggles.-MC © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
