This graphic novel feels like a poetry collection. It is a collection with each page almost self-contained, but it all fits together into a memoir-ish story. There are so many topics of identity dealt with. Each page could stand alone framed on a wall.



I felt like this would make a great coffee table book to leave out and flip through leisurely. It would be jarring to try and read through all of the book in one sitting. I give this book a 4/5.

I was expecting a cohesive story, but this is more like journal-style or a coffee table comic book. With the author’s insights on topics like being gay, depression and existentialism.

I really enjoyed the art style in this graphic novel and the story as well. I could relate to the main character on how people want to put them in a box and label them when they just want to be free and themselves. But not have to worry about putting themselves in a box and labeling themselves.

This story goes through the emotions of figuring out who you are and how to accept yourself when others do not. It promotes healthy attitudes and seeking professional help, it encourages leaving toxic relationships behind, and supports having those difficult conversations and seeking out answers for struggles from your past. Because it is told in a poetic format the story is broken into 2-3 page segments. While they all focus around similar things, it felt disjointed and didn't flow smoothly. Also, the art changed styles a bit, which is fine, but when you are used to one style and it changes it can cause the story to stop while you get used to it. This might have been the author's choice hoping it would slow the reader down, but I didn't enjoy it. Still liked the overall message of the novel.

Copy provided by NetGalley.

Quite pretentious non-fiction comic, with overly complex design and wordage. Really not my thing...................................

This book has a dark tone to it. It is very sad and depressing. I can see the narrator as having severe depression. The main character hates everything about coming out, her body, and just everything in between about themselves. The graphics show the struggle as well as a lot of them are colorful even though they are struggling internally with dark stuff. The subject matter is intense. The main character is bi-sexual who knows their family will not accept this fact. Additionally, the graphics are basic. There is nothing special about them. And at times the graphic placement is confusing. I was not sure where to read next on the page. This may have been done because of the confusion in the main character's head though. It did send me for a loop. The ending did NOT resolve my dread and depression feeling. I wish I could have seen some hope for the main character.

This graphic novel was very uneven. Some pages were so soft, so well drawn, with a very inspiring message ; and many other pages were very low quality, both in terms of graphics and writing. The structure was also very off and hard to follow. I understand that the author wanted to be authentic and to include her full journal, but I feel like if only half of the best extracts would have been chosen, it would have made the overall experience of reading this book way more pleasant, bumping the rating from 2 stars to 3.5 stars.

I enjoyed the emotional memoir quite a lot!

I would like to thank the publisher for giving me a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Lovely concepts and there were a few pages that were spot on for me (would be useful for teaching tools, too).

The entire compilation as a whole didn’t work for me though. It felt messy for lack of a better word?

Queer, Chinese immigrant woman sorting out life and its ups and downs. From the description I thought it would be a perfect match for me, but it just didn’t quite work for me (art or writing) But! Graphic novels are especially personally, I think, and like I said there were a couple pages that I would’ve totally flagged or sent to friends or used with students.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

It’s too much too take in at one go. Yao Xiao’s ‘Everything is Beautiful, and I’m Not afraid’ needs to be contemplated on page by page. It’s illustrations studied for it’s beauty and meaning and yet you can’t stop but turn the page to delve deeper. Her innermost thoughts laid bare, Xiao’s book is like navigating through stormy seas with an expert hand guiding you, leading you, prodding you to calmer waters, to safety. Pick and choose what you like, this book is a keeper to turn to, to turn over, to stare at, to help you move forward when you reach a dead end.

So moved by this book. I'd seen some of Yao Xiao's work on Autostraddle over the years, and eagerly snapped this up. I was not disappointed.

An absolutely poetic graphic novel, beautifully done. And oh-my-god the feelings... all of the feelings. Dark and lonely; hopeful and at peace. This work clearly illustrates a restless searching for belonging - with society, with family and with oneself.

Favorites:
“I’m not afraid”
[…] But I’m still here.
Everything is fucking beautiful.
And I am not afraid.

“Don’t censor feelings”
It’s important to be mad
It’s important to be sad
It’s important to be angry and lost
And to carry on dreaming of what you love

"I don't have a box"
I don't want to choose a box.
I'm just... Hanging out. That's okay, yes?

** I received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**

I enjoyed reading this book but I don't think it was for me. It was kind of rambling at times and I didn't always understand what was going on. It wasn't bad, just not the best! The art style wasn't my favorite either but it might be someones!!

I keep seeing people say that there's something chaotic about the way that the book is set up, but that worked for me. I took away that it was meant to be jumbled, that it was meant to sound like a diary or someone trying to work through how they feel about life. There is no order to the way that we live even if we'd like to think so. There are no neat boxes to tuck ourselves away with or structure that will allow only the important story beats to shine through. The journey is just as much part of the experience.

Read them like self-contained stories like they're meant to be and all of a sudden everything makes more sense. Yao Xiao does an admirable job of trying to explain not just what the queer immigrant experience is like, but what -their- queer immigrant experience is like in particular. The beauty and pain of the experience, the chaotic mess of feelings, is at the core something that we can all empathize with even if our experiences differ on the whole.

I highly recommend reading this collection. It has some beautiful moments, some dark ones, and ones that made me smile just because it could.

I really enjoyed this. It was a simply drawn and told story of trying to find ones place, both in terms of sexuality and home. I really think this was a much needed addition to the queer comics. We need more stories about not only dealing with ones sexual orientation but also the intersectionality of dealing with immigrating to a new place.

This deals with the idea of finding home in the people that accept you. Feeling like an outsider in foreign lands. Missing home and yet not being accepted by family for who you are. And of course expressing and owning ones sexual identity. All of this done in such a simple yet effective way. It had a light hearted feeling but could tackle depression very well.

The book tackled so many ideas and was fantastic. I think it needed a little more cohesiveness though to draw everything back together. Maybe breaking up the comics into sections would help make the comics feel less scattered. But all in all I was able to draw parallels between the comics and could appreciate the message being said.

The book wasn't written in a flow, the author basically expressed her thoughts with illustrations about racial discrimination, coming out as bisexual, self love, trying to fit in a foreign country, immigration problems, loneliness, unsupportive friendships and other abstract thoughts and feelings. But these were not organized well in parts and sections but randomly put together with no proper structure. As a whole it just felt like a ranting comic instead of a well presented journey of a girl who is struggling to find an identity for herself.

Thought this was a lovely graphic volume that deals with queer, immigrant, and mental health issues. The illustrations were unique and I very much liked the author's varied and vibrant color palette.

Part illustrated diary, part advice in the form of comics (somewhat in the vein of Yuma Sakugawa’s Illustrated meditations).

This book isn't for everyone and I think that's why there are a lot of differing reviews. I really enjoyed it and I'll try to explain why.

The art style isn't exactly consistent (I feel like that's on purpose) and it's a little on the cartoon-y side but I actually really like it. There isn't a set formula like a four panel comic in this book, all the panels change from page to page making it feel more active and dynamic. The simplistic style also lends itself to focus less on the pictures and more on what is said and going on. That said, here are some truly lovely panels and full page spreads also included in here. Also there is more to art than making it conventionally attractive, it can be said that true art is a conveyance of feelings but art in itself is subjective .

This book does read more like confiding in your diary type of book, but it is definitely an art piece itself. Yao Xiao is telling a story that doesn't spell it out for the reader, in a traditional sense, and you're meant to read between the lines to fill in more of the story. There is a fair amount of referencing to being queer and an immigrant-which if you aren't those things you can't relate to but you can learn from. There is also other things that could be relatable, such as searching for your place in the world, accepting yourself, learning to speak positively, self-care, and just a ton of other things this book touches on.

Yao Xiao takes you on a journey to learn about her but also to learn about herself. She traverses many seemingly insignificant memories that obviously left a lasting impression on her, learning to accept herself-even if others won't, and learning that it doesn't make her any less if people don't accept her. This is such a lovely and open book that it almost feels like being confided in by a close friend.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC!
I’m a bit sad because this comic didn’t turn out like I was expected it to. The narrative voice was a bit hard to follow and I didn’t understand the messages behind some of the layouts. I think this book will find its audience but it didn’t work with me.

Everything Is Beautiful and I’m Not Afraid by Yao Xiao is a pleasant graphic novel. I found the layout hard to follow but the overall story was a good concept.