This right here is raw, the way everything is layed out like the dirty laundry in your room (sorry for pointing that out) but that is literally what anxiety does points out the flaws or the doubts or really anything that you can put your finger on that *could go wrong* but most likely wont.

I love the art style and the characters for each anxiety feeling, paints a vivid picture for some of the anxiety's everyone goes though.

I most certainly felt a connection to most of this and the ending is perfect.

“This isn’t the triumphant tale of a hero who defeated his monsters … it’s just the story of somebody who’s learning to live with them.”

Most readers will already be well acquainted with at least some of the monsters in this book. Featured monsters include doubt, fear, social anxiety, past trauma and sadness.

The author uses personal examples to introduce readers to his monsters and explore how they interact with him day and night, from doubts that keep him awake to anxiety about the future.

I could readily identify some of the monsters, like the cute little sowers of doubt, but others weren’t as easy to name. It would have helped me if the monster mugshots had introduced the story instead of being hidden at the end.

While I had originally hoped the illustrations would be in colour, it felt more and more appropriate for them to be in grayscale. While there is some hope towards the end of the story, I felt like I was walking through molasses sometimes.

I haven’t found the humour yet. Despite that, I really liked the illustrations and found many of the stories very relatable.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Ablaze and Diamond Book Distributors for the opportunity to read this graphic novel. I’m rounding up from 3.5 stars.

"This isn't the triumphant tale of a hero who defeated his monsters. It's just the story of somebody who's learning to live with them."

A series of short comics in which the author personifies his anxieties as literal monsters vocalizing his constant worries, insecurities, and self-criticisms. Everyday, they appear to paralyze him with anxiety, loom over his shoulder in judgement, and literally hold him back from living, a constant presence from which he cannot escape. (Though I must say, their faces are awfully cute.) Though he tries to make fun of his experiences, the overall tone feels too bleak and hopeless to be considered very funny, unless one enjoys black humor. Much of this can be contributed to the artwork: the stark grayscale drawings amplify the text to convey the author's unhappiness. The author himself is portrayed as a scruffy, unkempt man in an A shirt and boxer briefs, a great visual indicator that his life is only barely holding together.

Adult readers with anxiety (increasingly common in this day and age) will find much to relate to. I would not recommend this title for teens, even older ones. A big theme is aging while feeling as though one has not accomplished anything, which a younger audience would hopefully find difficult to empathize with.

(As a side note, the discussion questions and projects at the very end are interesting way to encourage readers to confront their own problems.)

I think that any publisher who has ever handled graphic books will have at least one volume of this kind on their shelves – a creative type portraying how mental illness, anxiety and social problems manifest in their life and work. This is possibly one of the better ones, a black and white variant, that jumps from being one- or two-spread pieces literally showing the monsters in our chap's mind, to better, more long-form efforts. The critters have great design – copious bad ideas and doubts litter his flat, although they're cute little lightbulbs; the stronger, nastier beasts have a fine variety to their look, even if they seem rather interchangeable, and all have the same effect – at least until the gallery of them that closes out the book, oddly. I guess it's only fitting that the diverse monsters have the same malaise as a result of them being around, for any one of them or any combination would get a man down. Still, there is a light of positivity here to not make this book too much of a bummer, so I guess it's worth four stars.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC! I thought this was an amazing graphic novel that I will recommend to family and friends. I enjoyed the personification of all the different things that play a part in mental health struggles. The doubts and their little butts made me giggle. I feel like it really showed that there are a lot of ‘monsters’ that can come to light and how they manifest in one’s mind. It did a great job in showing how suffocating they can be and that everyone is dealing with their own ‘monsters’ even if we can’t see it. I also enjoyed that it wasn’t a story about overcoming and getting rid the monsters but that they will always be there and it’s how to live with them and working to make their impact ‘limited and not limiting’. I highly enjoyed the explanations of the monsters at the end as I wasn’t always sure exactly what they were personifying in the beginning, it was very helpful! All in all I thought this graphic novel memoir that brings more light (and a little humor) to mental health was stunning and creative! Everyone should read this!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

MonsterMind: Dealing With Anxiety & Self-Doubt by Alfonso Casas is an amazing graphic novel for adult Pixar and Studio Ghibli fans! The story is somewhat of an autobiography and revolves around the author as he struggles with his anxieties and negative emotions, which was anthromorphized into monsters. Throughout the book, which is divided into short sequences, he deals with monsters like Mr. Fear, Mr. Social Anxiety, Mr. Sadness, and Mr. Doubt. Some of them are drawn terrifyingly, some are drawn cutely. It's not a scary story though. The monsters serve the same purposes as the emotions in Inside Out or No Face in Spirited Away.

All I have to say after reading this book is wow! This book is incredibly creative. I would have never imagined someone personifying their own "monsters" in this way. I was impressed by the detail that went into drawing these monsters. Thr sequence of stories themselves are poignant and easy to relate to. I would say that this graphic novel is a must read for anyone dealing with their own monsters. It's cathartic to realize that others are dealing with the same thing and that it is possible to put your monsters away and stop them from invading your life. If you're intrigued by the excerpt above, or if you're fan of graphic novels in general, I highly recommend that you check out this book when it comes out in December!

Great artwork however the text was tiny. Good introduction book on anxiety, doubt, and how to deal with negative thoughts in general. The artwork was really able to capture the emotion of the main character. I will be on the look out for the author and his other work to read.

Thank you very much for writing this and for drawing it up I hope it will help people around the world in dealing with the world of themselves and all that good comes back to you

I am beyond thrilled Alfonso Casas’ MonstruosaMente is being translated into English (thanks to editor Ablaze and translator Andrea Rosenberg), because I feel it is a comic book that a very large audience needs in this post(?)-pandemic state.
It starts slowly, presenting not only our main character, Alfonso, but all the monsters that live in his mind. We’ve got Snarl, Social Anxiety, Mr. Past Traumas, Fear and some other mind-tenants, all trying to cohabit in a tiny studio in Barcelona, where sunlight is only 45 minutes a day but the creatures are there 24/7. Alfonso does not really want them there with him, obviously, but he is having trouble throwing them away. And every small comic strip, every idea, every story… hurts close to home.
It is important to pinpoint that MonsterMind is more a collection of strips than a whole story. The reader can sense an evolution in Alfonso, but each story has its own importance and will resonate more or less depending on each individual’s particular case.
I am personally glad we live a moment in time in which both books and comic books about mental health are making us feel less alone, and there is something in MonsterMind that makes it shine among the others: the monsters feel completely real throughout the story; they are able to appear just for one phrase, after almost a whole chapter in silence, and get to you immediately. The art, on the other hand, makes you feel their presence and understand what Alfonso is going through, and each monster is depicted in a way that can be easily identified. (And some of them are even cute, and that makes them even worse!)
I am intrigued to see how the English-speaking world reacts to MonsterMind; As I said before, I am ecstatic for a larger audience of readers to be able to discover and enjoy Alfonso Casas’ work.