BLAME THIS ON THE BOOGIE - Softcover

"Blame This on the Boogie is a freeform immersion via the Great American Songbook into memory, motherhood, Filipino culture, Pittsburgh, and Dancing With the Stars fan-fiction, told with delirious hand-made energy and big-hearted charm."--Daniel Clowes "Blame This on the Boogie draws us in with effortless grace and weaves a sweetly compelling story of assimilation, ambition, and a 1980s childhood shaped by 'Solid Gold, ' Duran Duran videos, and Fred Astaire. Rina's gift for expressing her love of dance and her love for her family brings something new and refreshing to graphic memoirs that I want more of!"--Mimi Pond "Ayuyang's visuals are wonderfully musical, lilting across the pages with energy and movement... Readers will be swept off their feet by this irresistible bildungsroman."--Publishers Weekly Starred Review "A 70s disco movie in graphic-novel form."--Chicago Reader, Most Anticipated Books of 2018 "[Ayuyang's] art is absolutely gorgeous."--Bookriot "Rendered entirely with colored pencils, Ayuyang's art is full of vibrant vitality."--The AV Club "With bright, vivacious colors that echo the very films she loves, Ayuyang draws in readers as she struggles to deal with conflicts and worries both personal and universal."--Paste Magazine

Inspired by the visual richness and cinematic structure of the Hollywood musical, Blame This on the Boogie chronicles the adventures of a Filipino American girl born in the decade of disco who escapes life's hardships and mundanity through the genre's feel-good song-and-dance numbers. Rina Ayuyang explores how the glowing charm of the silver screen can transform reality, shaping a person's approach to childhood, relationships, sports, reality TV, and eventually politics, parenthood, and mortality. Ayuyang's comics are as vibrant as the movies that she loves. Her deeply personal, moving stories unveil the magic of the world around us--rendering the ordinary extraordinary through a jazzed-up song-and-dance routine. Ayuyang showcases the way her love of musicals became a form of therapeutic distraction to circumnavigate a childhood of dealing with cultural differences, her struggles with postpartum depression, and an adulthood overshadowed by an increasingly frightening and depressing political climate. Blame This on the Boogie is Ayuyang's ode to the melody of the world, and shows how tuning out of life and into the magic of Hollywood can actually help an outsider find her place in it.