There are many people who take a good night’s sleep for granted while others would do anything to have it. In a world where caffeine is plentiful, doomscrolling is the number one activity behind pickleball, and anxiety is seemingly a cornerstone of our society, a good night’s sleep, for many, seems to be more unattainable by the day. Graphic storyteller Maureen Burdock has dealt with insomnia for much of her life and chronicles her journey in Sleepless Planet: A Graphic Guide to Healing from Insomnia, a book that’s part memoir, part self-help book, and part good sleep manifesto.
Burdock has suffered from insomnia since childhood. As an adult, she sought out doctors and specialists for quick fixes, including drugs and machines to help her breathe properly while sleeping. She eventually comes across a more holistic approach that includes diet, exercise, spirituality, and realizing how our culture of consumerism and progress are detrimental to our own mental health and even the health of the planet.
Far from a simple how-to-sleep manual, Burdock introduces a lot of concepts that don’t initially seem connected. The book can swing wildly from biography to environmental studies to dream studies and mediation. However, there is a slow and steady progression of ideas that are well-researched, according to the footnotes at the end of the book. Burdock’s work is broken up into four chapters, which helps break up the information she presents into manageable chunks and each chapter feels like its own separate book on better sleep. By labeling each chapter as one of the four elements (air, fire, earth, and water), Burdock also creates a mystical, dreamlike aesthetic that suits a book presenting an overall holistic approach to getting better sleep.
That dreamlike aesthetic is only reinforced by Burdock’s artwork, which, while eschewing color, presents a vivid landscape where slices of life are intertwined with symbolic imagery. Presenting information within comic panels along with pictures can often be more accessible, whether those pictures use illustration to demonstrate an idea in action or simply to create a sense of whimsy, what Mary Poppins would call a “spoonful of sugar” that helps the didactic text blocks be remembered. Burdock presents a lot of whimsy in the form of talking koalas, inanimate objects with expressive faces, and an anthropomorphic representation of menopause that smothers the author much in the same way an MMA fighter smothers an opponent.
Adult services librarians interested in purchasing this book should reconsider simply sticking this book in your library’s Graphic Novel collection. Consider putting it in your library’s nonfiction section with other books on diseases and how to cure them. It will improve the chances of a person in need of a good night sleep (and in need of advice from someone who’s lived with insomnia) finding it.
Sleepless Planet A Graphic Guide to Healing from Insomnia By Maureen Burdock Graphic Mundi, 2025 ISBN: 9781637790939
The advanced review copy of Dear Body, edited by Lea Bordier, that I read for this review states on its cover: “In Dear Body, 12 women and non binary describe their relationship with their own bodies in their own words.” As Bordier explains in the introduction, the twelve short pieces the volume contains are adapted from a video project that she created. The stories are translated from French, leading to some occasional awkward turns of phrase, but overall, it’s an easily digestible, thoughtful collection of women and non-binary folks’ stories about their bodies. Each story is illustrated by a different artist, offering a variety of voices and styles.
The stories contemplate topics such as pregnancy, rape, illness and injuries, feminine grooming and dressing, being fat, being Black, and being disabled. A common thread throughout several of the stories is how other people react to the bodies of the main characters, and how the words and actions of others towards their bodies contribute to the characters’ perception of themselves. It emphasizes how societal norms and ideals can affect our self-worth, especially when we defy those norms and ideals. Even more so, it questions why some people feel entitled to treat others a certain way based solely on their bodies. The main characters range in age, with some diversity among the dozen: one lesbian, one nonbinary person, one Black woman, and one Asian woman. One character, Camille, has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, a walker, and crutches throughout her story.
The deep and introspective stories surprised me with a breadth of topics. Shonah struggled to be taken seriously by doctors and it took years to reach her diagnosis of Vestibulodynia. Blaise asks themself of feminine grooming rituals, “Am I doing this for them or for me?” Sophie took two bullets during a shooting and relates her slow recovery through surgery, physical complications, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Mathilde, a fat woman, gets called hurtful names and has trouble finding clothes that fit, but she also sings in a band, has a fun social life, and works out at the gym. Each story is told with lush, beautiful art. “Mathilde”, by Mademoiselle Caroline, reminds me of something you’d see in The New Yorker, with curving, painterly lines and bold pops of color. It also depicts a fat body naked in everyday scenarios such as lounging with a lover and showering at the gym, which complements the story well. “Sophie”, by Karensac, is drawn in a pleasant, cute cartoon style with an orange and blue color palette. Assigning a different artist to each story adds to each one’s unique feel.
The only minor issue with the collection is that the translation from French to English stumbles in some places. For instance, in “Aurelie”, the text reads, “I lost so much weight I had to be hospitalized. I didn’t attend my sophomore or junior year. I was pretty sheltered from comments because I was marginalized until I was 20,” (81). I think by marginalized, perhaps the author meant something closer to isolated. In “Mayalan”, the main character admits, “I had a lot of trouble accepting my body up until one day when I said: Enough!” (91). In the same story, Mayalan points out her faults on a diagram of her own body, with an arrow pointing to her ankles that reads “terrible hemline,” (89). Still, with Lea Bordier’s original video project in French, this may be as good as it gets for an Anglophone audience without French language proficiency.
Dear Body is a decent anthology with some lovely art and an array of themes, though Ivanka Hahnenberger’s translation is awkward at times. Consider it an optional purchase for adult graphic novel collections.
Dear Body By Lea Bordier Art by Carole Maurel, Karensac, Eve Gentilhomme, Lucille Gomez, Mademoiselle Caroline, Sybilline Meynet, Cy, Marie Boiseau, Anne-Olivia Messana, Mirion Malle, Mathou, Daphne Collignon FairSquare Comics, LLC., 2023 ISBN: 9798985927832
Publisher Age Rating: 16+ NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+)
Silent meditation retreats are havens for deep, spiritual enlightenment, and it’s the last place Binh wants to be—especially after fighting off a bully in school for having taunted his Vietnamese heritage. From award-winning author and graphic novelist Minh Lê (Drawn Together, Green Lantern: Legacy) and New York Times bestselling illustrator Chan Chau (Baby-Sitter’s Club) comes Enlighten Me, a coming-of-age story steeped in Buddhist traditions, history, and folklore.
The story begins with Binh and his family headed to the peaceful Three Jewels Mountain Retreat, a silent meditation camp where he surrenders his treasured Game Boy upon arriving. This is the last place he expected to find himself after defending himself from a school bully who directed anti-Asian slurs at his Vietnamese culture. Why was he punished for being the victim? The vice principal figured a weekend family trip here would address his violent behavior. He joins the others kids to practice the art of meditation, but before long, sore legs, a stiff back, and disruptive thoughts invade his mind and distract his focus. Not until Sister Peace, one of the Buddhist monks, begins recounting wondrous tales about the Buddha does Binh embark on a path toward self-enlightenment and deep understanding.
The plot shifts into gear as Binh learns about Prince Siddhartha—a young boy sheltered from the evils of the world—who would one day venture beyond the walls of the royal palace, destined to become the Buddha. Another story drawn from the Jataka tales, stories of the Buddha’s past lives, reveals how as a young prince, he wielded five deadly weapons to combat a ferocious monster lurking deep inside a dark forest. In another tale about devotion to family, Buddha in the form of a golden deer gets caught in a trap, so its siblings come to its aid, refusing to leave its side even when a hunter comes along. Lê and Chau have created a delightfully heartwarming story that blends snatches of humor with moments that capture Binh’s hyperactive fascination with videogames. From serene images of nature to the digital world of Donkey Kong, he envisions himself floating through nebulous space in dynamically arranged panels. Events in the present unfold as Binh imagines taking part in adventures from the traditional tales, each one bearing a nugget of wisdom.
Structured in a semi-episodic style similar to the Arabian Nights, Enlighten Me paves an intriguing path into Buddhist philosophies, yet also weaves in themes of bullying, fitting in, self-control, community building, and finding oneself in the moment. This entertaining and thoughtful semiautobiographical graphic novel highlights a unique perspective on how one middle-schooler learns to navigate the challenges of life to find inner peace through self-disciplined mindfulness, thereby adding a culturally enriching experience to middle grade collections.
Enlighten Me Vol. By Minh Lê Art by Chan Chau Little, Brown, 2023 ISBN: 9780759555488
NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11) Creator Representation: Vietnamese American, Character Representation: Vietnamese American,
If you and your significant other agree on most things, what happens when one big thing comes up that you disagree on? Is being almost perfect for each other enough to happily continue the relationship despite that one Big Thing?
In Just Another Meat-Eating Dirtbag, Michael Anthony (author) and Chai Simone (artist) depict a relationship between an omnivore and a vegetarian. Michael, our narrator, is an Iraqi war veteran with body image issues. Michael’s girlfriend, nicknamed Coconut, is a vegetarian who gets more involved in animal rights activism and goes vegan. Michael had to turn off his emotions in order to survive war. “But to do it all-deal with the dead, the dying…the sleepless nights, weeks, months, and to save as many lives as possible, we had to stop caring. We had to let it all go and become autonomic machines. Emotionless. Detached…and yet, after everything I’d seen and been through, Coconut thought some videos would…overwhelm me? Change my entire life? Disgust me into action? Get me to stop eating meat?” (p. 16-19). Coconut’s mother’s past damaging criticisms of Coconut’s body and her own caring, selfless nature inform her backstory. Can their otherwise harmonious relationship survive Michael’s veiled—and Coconut’s overt—conversion attempts? I hoped for a certain outcome, but I’ll let you read the book and find out for yourself what happens.
Simone’s art style is colorful and cartoony. Her characters’ facial expressions and body language convey their many moods, ranging from Coconut’s horror and smugness to Michael’s exasperation and befuddlement. She draws supporting characters with care as well. In one scene where Michael is asking event guests what made them decide to be vegetarian, it’s interesting to see how their faces change when he follows that with “What would get you to eat meat again?” (p. 69). Simone’s lettering makes the book easy to read. Michael’s narration is shown in tan blocks of text, with different lettering styles used for dialogue and for each of the protagonists’ handwritten notes.
This is an interesting, multilayered story, not merely a lecture on the harms of industrial animal agriculture. Although the book explores those harms, each character’s backstory and how their past experiences shape their current predicament is more compelling.
This book is for adult readers due to some graphic illustrations of warfare, slaughterhouse activities, and meat-packing plant scenes. There is also mention of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and substance abuse among veterans. Any library with an attentive readership of nonfiction graphic novels, either memoirs or food-related books, should consider this title for their collection. Check the recommended reading list on pages 168-169 for further resources on veganism.
Just Another Meat-Eating Dirtbag: A Memoir By Michael Anthony Art by Chai Simone Street Noise Books, 2022 ISBN: 9781951491192
Kimiko Tobimatsu, a 25-year-old queer, mixed-race Canadian woman with no history of health problems discovers a lump on her breast. In this powerful and honest autobiographical memoir, depicting her emotional and physical experiences with breast cancer, superbly illustrated by Keet Geniza, the reader weaves through the corridors of this disease with Kimiko. Her story commences with the newly complex life of constant appointments, evaluations, treatments, and the difficult conversations with everyone she cares about as she contemplates having breast cancer. The most appealing aspect of this novel, for me, is how the author and illustrator expand the customary narrative of cancer patients to illuminate the continual issues, rarely discussed, once a patient is deemed “cancer-free.”
“There’s not a lot of writing out there on cancer and disability. Maybe because for those of us who are now cancer-free, the ongoing symptoms are after-effects (of surgery, radiation, meds), not the result of disease still being present. Or maybe it’s because the mainstream cancer narrative is about overcoming adversity, not about experiencing ongoing disability” (92).
Kimiko’s relative youth generates a multitude of additional concerns once the cancer has been contained. She becomes highly aware of her body, its image, the food she consumes, the relationships new and old, being queer, all while becoming attuned for the perpetual need to rest, regroup, and rejuvenate. Her relationships with her family, especially her mother, play a huge role in Kimiko’s self-discovery as does her floundering relationship with her partner. She addresses many popular mindsets, within and outside, the medical profession regarding gender expression, reconstructive breast surgery, reproduction, early menopause, and the stereotypes perpetuated by the ubiquitous “pink ribbon” campaigns. In this compellingly told story, she shares with the reader her discoveries of how she found her own approach to move forward and the energy and dedication that the move demanded on her personally. As mentioned previously this is a robust resource for others who do not see themselves in standard breast cancer tales.
Geniza’s use of muted blues, blacks, and grays intensify the gravity of the situation, highlighting, through the expressive facial portraits, the fatigue and worry that the experience has on all those involved, not only the protagonist. The illustrations add to the tenderness, the pain, and the hope of those within Kimiko’s circle. The illustrations effectively and economically enhance the text in the relating of the narrative and in bringing the characters alive for the readers.
I must add a disclaimer here, your reviewer experienced similar encounters with the upside-down experiences of being diagnosed with breast cancer and its after effects. Kimiko’s story, although quantitatively different, strongly resonated with me as I reviewed her story and especially her disclosures about the aftermath of being “cancer-free”. Ironically, perhaps, I found reading this graphic novel experience joyful and poignant. It reverberated loudly with me although I match the perceived demographic of breast cancer patients in Canada. Her story strongly demonstrates that each person’s experience is uniquely their own, regardless of common, or in this case, uncommon markers of the disease and treatment. It also points to the unexpected interconnections in the shared experiences as well.
This graphic novel is a strong entry in the genre of graphic medicine and should be widely accessible in all public libraries as well as academic library collections highlighting memoirs, health and wellness narratives, and LGBTQ dialogues.
Kimiko Does Cancer: A Graphic Memoir By Kimiko Tobimatsu Art by Keet Geniza ISBN: 9781551528199 Arsenal Pulp, 2020 Publisher Age Rating: Adult
Title Details and Representation NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+) Character Traits: Queer Creator Highlights: Japanese-Canadian, Queer, Genderqueer, Disability
After a breakdown, Celeste “Cel” Walden loses her job at the public library. Desperate for a new job, she applies for and gets an archivist assistant position at the Logan Museum and Library, a medical museum and archive. Cel’s new workplace is full of mysteries with its aloof head curator and a secretive board. Most strange of all is the ghost of a young woman who starts appearing in Cel’s dreams and overturning objects while Cel is nearby. As she develops a strong sympathy with the ghost, Cel works to uncover the museum’s secrets so that she can save this mysterious individual and herself.
At first glance, Archival Quality has all the components of a horror story, but is in fact a spooky mystery that explores the protagonist’s relationship with mental illness. The mystery itself is slow to unravel; in addition to the characters’ realistic struggles to find information in the archives, author Ivy Noelle Weir reveals the ghost’s backstory through dreams and flashbacks and mixes it with interactions that highlight Cel’s own struggle with mental illness. Cel’s determination drives a lot of the action, yet the interactions between Cel and her fellow cast members are what carry the story. The main cast members, which include a delightful librarian named Holly and the aloof head curator Abayomi, are well-rounded, and the developing friendship that ultimately helps both Cel and the ghost develops naturally. While the climax reveals an improbable secret (that nevertheless fits well with the story’s themes), the story is overall sweet and thoughtful.
One particular strength of Archival Quality is that it portrays mental illness in a sensitive way. It both addresses the differences in treatment past and present as well as explores mental illnesses’ impact on the individual and those around them. A good example of this is the ways Cel responds to different kinds of support from her boyfriend and her friends, yet nobody’s behavior is condemned in the story. As the secrets of the museum come to light, the story briefly touches on the concept of personal limits and understanding them. The lesson of understanding those limits and working together to achieve goals is clearly and touchingly conveyed.
Steenz’s bright and colorful artwork contributes to the narrative’s charm and her drawings portray the characters’ personalities through expressive gestures, both of which contribute to the story’s charm and humor. It is evident that Steenz put a lot of thought into the character designs and fabulous outfits. Occasionally, the illustrations become fragmented at odd times, and it can be hard to read text outside of the panel or speech bubbles because of their placement on dark colors or the lettering style. These issues rarely occur, and overall the work reads smoothly.
Archival Quality is a sensitive exploration of mental illness that will interest individuals looking for a fun and spooky mystery. An additional strength is the naturally incorporated diverse cast: Abayomi and Holly are black, and Holly is in a lesbian relationship. There is little gore—save for Cel’s plot-significant nosebleeds—and most of the horrific medical procedures are implied or discussed. With its focus on strong characterization and expressive art, Archival Quality will appeal to fans of creators such as Faith Erin Hicks. Given the story’s content and the fact that at least one character speaks academically, Archival Quality would be best for teens and adults.
Archival Quality by Ivy Noelle Weir Art by Steenz ISBN: 9781620104705 Oni Press, 2018
In 2009, Allie Brosh started the blog/webcomic hybrid Hyperbole and a Half. Here, she told humorously melodramatic stories from her childhood and recent life and explored random funny ideas. She filled the posts with bright, simplistic cartoons done in an intentionally crude style using the MS-Paint-like software Paintbrush.
Hyperbole and a Half gained a huge following and critical attention. Some of Brosh’s creations became popular memes, like the cartoon of herself boldly declaring that she will “CLEAN ALL THE THINGS!” She also invented the “alot,” a furry creature inspired by the way people sometimes write “a lot” as one word. More meaningful to some fans are Brosh’s emotional—yet still funny—posts about her experiences with depression and ADHD.
Brosh stopped updating Hyperbole and a Half in 2013. That same year, this book came out. It compiles some of the author’s favorite posts from her blog, plus roughly ten new stories. The stories vary in tone: some are snarky glimpses of life with mental illness, while others are purely silly romps. Brosh’s much-lauded comics about depression appear alongside the antics of her misbehaving dogs. Brosh maintains her absurd, over-the-top humor whether she’s talking about having suicidal thoughts or about that wacky time a goose got into the house.
What the book doesn’t have is any of the “random stuff” stories that appeared on the blog, like the “alot” or Brosh’s noodle character Spaghetta Nadle. All of the stories included in the book describe events, physical or emotional, from the author’s life. This makes it read like a humorous, non-linear memoir.
The book is well-made, with glossy pages and considerable heft for a paperback. The color of the page background changes with each story, so flipping through the book (or just looking at the page edge) is a colorful experience. This also makes it clear when you’re finishing one story and starting the next.
Each story begins with an introduction in plain text, followed by a mix of full-color artwork and more text. The art appears in rectangular panels that span the width of the page, and features a cast of quirky, distinctive characters: Allie Brosh, her parents and sister, her boyfriend, and their dogs. Despite the simple drawing style, these characters are all easy to recognize and tell apart, and their faces and postures are remarkably expressive.
As far as content, these comics contain no violence, unless you count one goose attack and what happens to that poor cake at the hands of four-year-old Allie. No sexual content, either. There is frank, detailed discussion of the emotional experience of having ADHD and depression, including Brosh’s difficulty motivating herself, struggle with shame and self-hate, and suicidal thoughts. These eventually lead her to seek treatment and reach a place of hope.
There are also a lot of F-bombs. A lot. (Not to be mistaken for “alot of F-bombs,” which Brosh would illustrate very differently.) Brosh also uses the R-word a few times in one story in which she decides to test her dog’s intelligence. For what it’s worth, she uses the word not as an insult but when speculating that her dog has a mental handicap.
This book stands on its own and no knowledge of the Hyperbole and a Half blog required. But readers who are already fans are especially in for a treat. Those who identify with Brosh’s descriptions of mental illness will enjoy new stories about her coping mechanisms and motivational techniques. Readers who prefer the author’s purely funny stories will like the new ones about her childhood and her badly-behaved dogs. Hand it to readers who don’t mind some heavy stuff mixed in with their humor and to anyone interested in an unconventional memoir by someone living with mental illness.
Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, and Other Things that Happened by Allie Brosh ISBN: 9781451666175 Touchstone, 2013
Do you feel anxious or upset all the time? Have others around you suggested therapy, but you feel uncertain about it? In When Anxiety Attacks, Terian Koscik describes her decision to get therapy and the aftermath. From unraveling the reason she walks three miles to Walgreens for just a roll of toilet paper, to her fears regarding her friend’s unwillingness to hang out, Koscik shows how therapy helps her come to terms with herself and manage her anxiety.
The quirky title When Anxiety Attacks got my attention, and, because I have enjoyed mental health comics in the past, I was excited to read it. When Anxiety Attacks does not follow a traditional story arc, rather it offers a collection of episodes that show Koscik’s experiences in and out of therapy. Most of the book focuses on short snippets of her experiences in therapy and her experiences applying what she learned in her day-to-day life. Throughout the book, she frequently pokes fun at her own perceptions, which gives When Anxiety Attacks a lighthearted tone.
Koscik’s art also contributes to the book’s lighthearted tone. Her panels of entertaining graphs and short hypothetical scenarios poke fun at her anxiety rather than letting the stressful aspects overwhelm the narrative. Koscik’s expressive faces are especially good at conveying entertaining reactions to events. Color is used sparingly and is often used to add some interest or to convey extreme emotion, to great effect.
Despite its good humor, however, the book did not come together for me. The lack of a narrative arc weakens its message. I found myself wanting more details of her experiences with therapy and thought the book needed a better trajectory. The book jumps too quickly from therapy experience to her self-acceptance, and there are no real details or points to show how Koscik got there. These lack of details lessens the impact of the final message. When Anxiety Attacks could have been an engrossing portrayal of anxiety and the impact of therapy, but it sadly falls short.
When Anxiety Attacks: Seeking Out Therapy Even When Your Problems Seem Weird or Silly by Terian Koscik ISBN: 9781848192843 Singing Dragon, 2015
Stacy, the seventeen-year-old semi-autobiographical protagonist of How I Made It To Eighteen by Tracy White, is struggling. From the outside, her life seems fine, but she privately struggles with drugs and an eating disorder. In an attempt to get her undiagnosed depression under control, she checks herself into a psychiatric hospital.
Told in a series of chapters framed by a therapist questioning four of her friends, White gives you snapshots of her treatment. Each chapter opens with a count of how many days Stacy has been in the institution – six days, eighteen days, forty days – followed by a scene from her life in the institution. The chapters end with an unseen therapist asking each of her four friends a question. Through their answers, you get a sense of Stacy, how she portrays herself in public or hides her problems, and also of her friends’ personalities – the friend who was clueless, the friend who is very self-centered, and so on. The book ends abruptly with a little afterward paragraph saying Stacy transitioned into semi-institutional living.
In many ways, this book is a long vignette. While White gives an introduction telling the reader that her story is a semi-autobiographical account of her personal experience in a mental institution, it begins and ends abruptly. You never really get an understanding of why she is there or that any real progress of change has been made. You only know she has checked herself in voluntarily through a flashback scene. White shows her resistance to admitting any problems but very little movement forward. She has unsatisfactory therapy with her mother, stubbornly resists everything her therapist is saying, and barely manages to stand up to her abusive boyfriend.
Some of this lack of forward movement may be because White herself is still so young. She’s only a couple years away from this event as of publication. This work is more like reading her journal, than a fully realized story. She does not seem to have distance from the event. There is no feeling that her time in an institution gave her insight into her life or helped her later on.
The art is very elegant. It is ink drawings with strong lines. Her work is clear, not sketchy. There is no shading but White is very expressive in her minimalism. She does a lot with a little, which fits the pared down story. Recommended for older teens and above because it deals with drugs and suicide.
How I Made it to Eighteen: A Mostly True Story by Tracy White ISBN: 1596434546 Roaring Brook Press, 2010
There are many people who take a good night’s sleep for granted while others would do anything to have it. In a world where caffeine is plentiful, doomscrolling is the number one activity behind pickleball, and anxiety is seemingly a cornerstone of our society, a good night’s sleep, for many, seems to be more unattainable by the day. Graphic storyteller Maureen Burdock has dealt with insomnia for much of her life and chronicles her journey in Sleepless Planet: A Graphic Guide to Healing from Insomnia, a book that’s part memoir, part self-help book, and part good sleep manifesto.
The advanced review copy of Dear Body, edited by Lea Bordier, that I read for this review states on its cover: “In Dear Body, 12 women and non binary describe their relationship with their own bodies in their own words.” As Bordier explains in the introduction, the twelve short pieces the volume contains are adapted from a video project that she created. The stories are translated from French, leading to some occasional awkward turns of phrase, but overall, it’s an easily digestible, thoughtful collection of women and non-binary folks’ stories about their bodies. Each story is illustrated by a different artist, offering a variety of voices and styles.
after fighting off a bully in school for having taunted his Vietnamese heritage. From award-winning author and graphic novelist Minh Lê (Drawn Together, Green Lantern: Legacy) and New York Times bestselling illustrator Chan Chau (Baby-Sitter’s Club) comes Enlighten Me, a coming-of-age story steeped in Buddhist traditions, history, and folklore.
If you and your significant other agree on most things, what happens when one big thing comes up that you disagree on? Is being almost perfect for each other enough to happily continue the relationship despite that one Big Thing?
Kimiko Tobimatsu, a 25-year-old queer, mixed-race Canadian woman with no history of health problems discovers a lump on her breast. In this powerful and honest autobiographical memoir, depicting her emotional and physical experiences with breast cancer, superbly illustrated by Keet Geniza, the reader weaves through the corridors of this disease with Kimiko. Her story commences with the newly complex life of constant appointments, evaluations, treatments, and the difficult conversations with everyone she cares about as she contemplates having breast cancer. The most appealing aspect of this novel, for me, is how the author and illustrator expand the customary narrative of cancer patients to illuminate the continual issues, rarely discussed, once a patient is deemed “cancer-free.”
After a breakdown, Celeste “Cel” Walden loses her job at the public library. Desperate for a new job, she applies for and gets an archivist assistant position at the Logan Museum and Library, a medical museum and archive. Cel’s new workplace is full of mysteries with its aloof head curator and a secretive board. Most strange of all is the ghost of a young woman who starts appearing in Cel’s dreams and overturning objects while Cel is nearby. As she develops a strong sympathy with the ghost, Cel works to uncover the museum’s secrets so that she can save this mysterious individual and herself.
In 2009, Allie Brosh started the blog/webcomic hybrid Hyperbole and a Half. Here, she told humorously melodramatic stories from her childhood and recent life and explored random funny ideas. She filled the posts with bright, simplistic cartoons done in an intentionally crude style using the MS-Paint-like software Paintbrush.
Do you feel anxious or upset all the time? Have others around you suggested therapy, but you feel uncertain about it? In When Anxiety Attacks, Terian Koscik describes her decision to get therapy and the aftermath. From unraveling the reason she walks three miles to Walgreens for just a roll of toilet paper, to her fears regarding her friend’s unwillingness to hang out, Koscik shows how therapy helps her come to terms with herself and manage her anxiety.
Stacy, the seventeen-year-old semi-autobiographical protagonist of How I Made It To Eighteen by Tracy White, is struggling. From the outside, her life seems fine, but she privately struggles with drugs and an eating disorder. In an attempt to get her undiagnosed depression under control, she checks herself into a psychiatric hospital.
