**I wasn’t ready for Maus. Honestly, no one ever is.**
A couple of months ago, I picked up Art Spiegelman’s Maus for the first time. I thought I knew what I was in for: “Oh, the famous Holocaust graphic novel with the mice and cats, right?” Yeah… I had no idea.
Ten pages in and I was already ugly-crying. By the time I finished both volumes (Maus I: My Father Bleeds History and Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began), I felt like someone had reached into my chest, pulled out my heart, and handed it back still beating. That’s the power of this book.
Let me tell you why Maus isn’t just a masterpiece—it’s the one graphic novel that completely changed how I think about trauma, family, memory, and yes, even comics themselves.
The story that broke me in two timelines
Maus isn’t a straight Holocaust memoir. It’s two stories fighting for space on the same page.
There’s the past: Vladek Spiegelman (Art’s father), a young Polish Jew trying to keep his wife Anja and their little boy safe as the Nazis close in. What starts with yellow stars and restricted parks turns into bunkers, starvation, betrayal, and Auschwitz. Vladek survives through insane luck, street smarts, and a stubborn will that somehow never breaks.
Then there’s the present (well, the 1970s–80s): old Vladek, now a cranky, miserly widower in Queens, pedaling on an exercise bike while telling his story to his son Art (who’s basically Spiegelman drawing himself). These scenes are painful in a completely different way—full of eye-rolls, arguments, and heartbreaking moments when you realize survival came at a brutal emotional cost.
I kept flipping between wanting to hug Vladek and wanting to scream at him. That tension? That’s the genius.
Yeah, the animal thing—let’s talk about it
Jews = mice. Germans = cats. Poles = pigs. Americans = dogs.
When you hear it explained like that, it sounds insane (or maybe even offensive). But trust me—once you’re inside the book, it works on a level I can’t even explain. The animal masks make the horror strangely bearable at first… and then Spiegelman rips the mask off (literally and figuratively), and you’re forced to remember these are real people.
There’s a moment where a Jewish character puts on a pig mask to “pass” as Polish on the street. My stomach dropped. In one panel, Spiegelman says everything about how arbitrary and evil Nazi racial categories were.
The parts that destroyed me the most
– Finding out Anja’s diaries—the one thing Art wanted more than anything—were burned by Vladek after her suicide. I actually had to put the book down and walk around my apartment.
– The tiny four-page comic-within-the-comic “Prisoner on the Hell Planet” where Spiegelman suddenly draws everyone as humans. It’s about his mother’s suicide and his own guilt. I’ve never seen grief rendered so raw.
– Vladek’s casual racism toward a Black hitchhiker in Volume II. It’s ugly and uncomfortable… and tragically realistic. Trauma doesn’t make you a saint.
Why this 30+ year-old “comic book” feels more urgent than ever in 2025
We’re living in a moment where people are banning Maus from schools because of a tiny bathtub panel and a couple of swear words. (Yes, really—Tennessee, 2022.) Every time someone tries to sanitize or erase this story, sales skyrocket. The book literally refuses to die, just like the memory it carries.
In a world of TikTok hot takes and oversimplified history, Maus screams: “It’s complicated. People are complicated. Survival is complicated. Remember anyway.”
Final thoughts from a new obsessive
If you’ve never read Maus, please do it. Borrow it, buy it, whatever—just read it. It’s devastating, darkly funny in places, and one of the most human things I’ve ever read (mouse heads or not).
It’s not just the only graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize (1992, special citation because they literally didn’t know what box to put it in). It’s the book that made me call my dad the day after I finished it, just to hear his voice.
So tell me in the comments: What’s the one book that absolutely wrecked you and put you back together differently? For me, right now, it’s Maus.
(And yes, I’ve already bought copies for three friends. Consider this my official warning—you won’t be the same after.)
As always, keep reading and reach for the stars.
