Welcome to Litsy!

I‘m not panning this because it‘s bad, I just wasn‘t the intended audience. Sometimes graphic memoirs reach out and touch deeply me even when they‘re wrestling with questions I‘m not, or I‘ve already answered. This one didn‘t. It was more like rambling conversations I‘ve had with friends over the years trying to sort out ourselves and our lives. Which makes the book essential if you don‘t know people actually asking these questions when you are.

This is the lower end of the pick scale for me. I picked it up because I love Lumberjanes, and Stevenson is a cocreator of that comic. Some parts of the book are great — the art, the poetry, some observations— while others just seem shallow. Many of the end of the year wrap-ups just feel like resumes. Stevenson often mentions working on secret projects, but we often don‘t find out what they are.

My first memoir and I loved it! Took two sittings to read the whole book.

Noelle Stevenson is a graphic novelist, known for Nimona and LumberJanes. This is her graphic memoir, developed from her blog of yearly wrap-ups in her twenties. She writes about coming out, her insecurities about early fame and anxiety about burning too bright too early, coming out, and her struggles with mental illness over the years. Finally, Stevenson has a diagnosis and gets married which leads to peace. Thanks @Megabooks for the rec!

I haven‘t had a 5⭐️ book in awhile but this outstanding graphic memoir is one!

Stevenson found much creative success early with projects like Nimona and Lumberjanes, but she worried about it leading to a burnout. She shares the joys and fears of being young and creative and balancing it with what was later diagnosed as Bipolar Disorder. She shares her coming out story, too. Raw, honest, and beautiful!

Oh. My. God. This book.
I can‘t even begin to put into words how I feel about it.
5⭐️.

Every cell in my body has died and grown again.

This isn‘t a resolution, a happy ending—it‘s the beginning.

Take a breath, as well as you can and prepare for the careful climb down.
You have a long life still to live and many more mountains to climb.

You‘re not okay, but you will be.
You are not done fighting yet.
And you will see the sun again.

You have broken.
But you will not stay broken.

Here‘s what they don‘t tell you about climbing mountains.
Almost everyone who dies, dies in the way down.
The summit, as much as you want it, is only the halfway point.

Could you use your scales to protect instead of hurt?
Could you control your fire so it warms instead of destroys?

It keeps you warm.
It eats you alive.

In the end, what she had to learn to do was live…
And this time, really, say yes to life.

“You fought your way out of the dark. I will too.”

It seems inevitable that we will tear ourselves apart but maybe it has always felt that way.

Your broken heart still beats.

This page! ❤️😭🤩🥲

How strange, to have such pride in the part of myself that seemed to be missing.

I could take pictures of every page in this book.

It‘s Friday.
I‘m in love.

A change is coming, I can feel it.
The air is heavy with it.
I think I‘m falling, but I don‘t care.

You‘re not a little girl anymore.
You don‘t want the things you thought you wanted then.
You‘re fine.
You‘re hard as diamonds.

😭

I dream of flying.
I can touch the clouds and it‘s everything I ever thought it would be.
You forget it isn‘t real.
And when you wake up, the ache you thought was gone is still there after all.
You‘ll never fly like that.
And the clouds are only water.

I know you‘ll never love me.
That‘s okay.
I only wanted the desire and none of the risk.

Like I said: amazing art!

The art in this book is sooooo good!

Wow.

“There is a hole that I don‘t want to fill, a demon I have come to love.”

🤩🫠😭

You explode like a firework and your heart breaks so violently and out of the pieces something beautiful grows.

You are trying to tell the world who you are, but they don‘t seem to understand. So you pick up a pen and you draw.

You want the world to see you and hear you, but you don‘t know yet what you are trying to say.

Already all the feels!

I used some of my Christmas gift card on these, a graphic novel and a graphic memoir. I‘m looking forward to reading them!

This is a heartfelt memoir in mostly drawings about several years in her young adulthood as her career and personal life were taking off.
She distills feelings SO well in one or two drawings! Noelle struggled with depression, coming out, gender confusion, religion, etc so it is not light reading.
But as a fan of her graphic novels, I am glad I read more about her in her own words/images. She is pretty amazing and brave to put herself out there.

This graphic memoir, told in the format of Noelle Stevenson‘s “Year in Review” updates from 2011-2019 is earnest and vulnerable…but somehow still guarded. It‘s hard to feel, as a reader, that you‘re not getting the complete story (& not as a literary device, either)…but to also feel, as an understanding person, that maybe you‘re not owed that.

*Continued 👇🏻

I appreciate this doodle, as I was once (pre-Bones) the Treasurer of an “I Love David Boreanaz Fan Club.”

We all had matching t-shirts adorned with puffy-painted smiley faces with fangs.

*Note: I don‘t know why I was elected Treasurer. I‘m not a numbers gal. But I suspect my acceptance of the position had something to do with the sparkly pink Kaboodle in which we kept our (lemonade sale) funds. Très chic.

☕️ 🤢 ☕️

I finished this book in one sitting. I‘m not even kidding. It was THAT GOOD! I loved it, it was very personal and emotional. I think it‘s safe to say I cried because least three different parts. I have SO MUCH respect for Noelle Stevenson for creating and publishing something so beautiful. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“I think it‘s time that you shed your skin and climb out of the hole you have dug yourself in. Here‘s your second chance. What will you do?”

Love your younger self, and let them die.

You‘re not okay, but you will be.
You are not done fighting yet and you will see the sun again.

It turns out there can be freedom in the falling, and strength in the breaking.

The dedication! I love it already.

I just found out that Noelle Stevenson is married to Molly Knox Ostertag and they are now my favorite lesbian couple.

This was so interesting… I love the author and am a big Lumberjanes/She-ra fan… and it‘s poignant reading this knowing her journey from the end onwards (she/he/they are transitioning, sort of - they explain it better than me!) I think there is a lot to mull over here for people from religious backgrounds too. I read it digitally but would like to reread in paper. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I enjoyed this one but was slightly frustrated at some of the detail that was withheld (ie. mentioning secret projects but not necessarily what they were). Glad the library got this one in.