I don't usually pick up graphic novels unless I plan on buying them for my middle school library, but between the cover of this one and the compelling description I decided to request an ARC anyway. And while there's nothing I would consider "inappropriate," it's definitely meant for older (i.e. high school) readers. It's a dark, difficult read that makes you feel hopeless and angry.

Growing up, one of my best friends was born in Korea and adopted by white parents. She was basically the only non-white person in our school, and our community was just as rural (if not more) than the one Sarah grows up in. It makes me sick to my stomach to think my friend could have experienced even a sliver of what Sarah goes through.

There are not many likable characters in this one, because even Sarah's friends seem to throw out casual racism without stopping to think about their words. I absolutely ADORE her parents, particularly her good-ol'-boy farmer dad who tells her not to take any shit and accompanies her to Comic Cons.

Dark subject matter and illustrations, but moving all the same.

This was such a heartbreaking story about a teen dealing with bullying in her small town for her being different due to her race. It was such a tough story to hear but one that needed to be told and heard. Everyone should read this book.

This was an extremely impactful graphic novel which was not only a well written story but also fantastically illustrated.

Reaching the end of the book and reading the authors note, the whole thing took on a different meaning. Realising that it's basically the story of the authors life makes it all the more heartbreaking.

This book looks at racism, sexuality and homophobia. With it being set in the late 90's into early 2000's, there's a lot of discussion around acceptable language.

I'll leave the reader to read the official blurb for a synopsis of events covered in this memoir and focus on the experience of reading it. This was a standout combination of art and text. The story is powerfully told, and the art not only illustrated the events, but shapes the reader's emotional experience of the text with just the right touches. It's like the visual version of excellent poetry, where a moment is felt acutely, profoundly, and you feel like the story is yours, too. A truly excellent graphic novel--highly recommended!

Born in South Korea and adopted with her older sister, Sarah has always struggled to fit in. Whether it's from the way her classmates treat her, the way her neighbors whisper about her family, or the struggle with her emotions, Sarah is feels completely out of place in her tiny Podunk town. Sarah struggles with her anger issues and lashes out at those around her. Drawing is her only outlet and when she finds anime, it quickly turns into an obsession. Even though Sarah is able to channel some of her creative emotions through cosplay and artwork, she still can't seem to make any connections with those around her. High school is even rougher, with the bullying coming to boil, will Sarah be able to stop herself from exploding?

Beautifully rendered, you can really feel Sarah's raw emotions and her raging emotions. I absolutely felt for her and even though I didn't go through all of the same situations, I really related to her struggle with fitting in and bullying. I wish I'd had some of Sarah's rage back then. An incredibly effective memoir that delves into the strife and trials of a queer Asian girl just desperate to be understood.

Review in progress and to come.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review

This graphic novel memoir was a hard but important read. Sarah was adopted from Korea by white parents and this is her experience growing up in the 90s and early 2000s. The aunt did not shy away from the racism she faced and the impact it had. We have come a long way since then but still have a ways to go.

I can't say anything that the other reviews haven't already said. As a librarian, I know my library will be adding Monstrous to our collection. As a mother of three, I know that this is the kind of memoir we need more of: it's open and honest, sometimes brutally so, and illustrates in a very human way the development of real self-awareness, something that too many fictional adolescent characters already preternaturally possess in full.

We walk with Sarah as she struggles with her cultural and societal identity, simultaneously wrestling with discovering who she is --- and who she wants to be --- on the most intimate and internal levels. This story is emotionally difficult; readers will hurt alongside Sarah, but they will also celebrate Sarah's triumphs. Ultimately, Monstrous is a story of hope, and the author's note at the end is evidence that while things may not be perfect, they do get better.

This graphic memoir that takes us through Sarah's inability to fit in, the racist bullying and remarks she faced, and the rage that all of this brings. But it also shows hope. And as a avid artist, which she explores in the graphic novel as well, the artwork is superb.

A powerful graphic memoir of a spirited international adopted child. Literally graphic illustrations of the pain of otherness related to temperament as well as blatant racism are hard to witness, but important to see. Sarah Meyer's work is searing, honest and engaging.

An interesting look at the life of an adopted child. The struggle of learning what culture to identify with, how to be yourself, who yourself is was amazing. I loved the adoptive parents in this graphic novel and struggled with the sister being so apathetic toward the younger sister's struggles. A very in your face portrayal of what people of different colors face when dealing with racial aggressions, as well as the brutality of school aged children bullying regarding sexuality. A solid graphic novel.

This is a visceral graphic memoir about growing up as a nerdy, queer, gender-conconforming transracial adoptee in middle America. It deals with bullying, mental health, anti-Asian racism, feeling like you don't fit, and not having the language to understand your own identity. The art does a wonderful job of showing the difference between Sarah's internal and external life as a child and adolescent. I think this is incredibly effective and would be an excellent book to hand to teenagers who might also struggle to see where they fit. I found it to be insightful, riveting, and sometimes relatable. The content isn't always easy to read but it's an excellent book. I received a copy of this book for review via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

Note that there is use of slurs, including things that were used casually in the 90's like r***rd and "gay" as derogatory, in addition to a lot of anti-asian slurs.

<b>Actual rating: 3.5 stars</b>

As usual, hard to put a rating on a memoir, as it's always a very personal story for the author to share. This one is very intense in its storytelling. There is a lot packed in there: bullying, racism, interracial adoption, queerness, anger issues... and I probably forget some. Add to it all the feelings involved with dealing with those issues... as I said it's a lot. Yet, I felt like Sarah Myer did a good job with the narration. They never made themselves the flawless victim but also talked about the unlikeable parts of their attitude/personality toward others. They also explain how their love for anime and drawing helped them cope through all those bad times and how they also had supportive people in their life (including their parents) even when they didn't always saw it.

I wasn't the biggest fan of the graphic style but it's in no way bad, it just didn't resonate much with me, but the story was worth the read anyway. I'd recommend this book to pretty much anyone but I think it can have a stronger impact on teens and pre-teens who are struggling with any sort of exclusion.

May this book have the same impact as Maia Kobabe's "Gender Queer" did on the world. "Mosntrous" serves as a slap in the face of the brutal racism children face at the hands of adults. Readers watch Sarah face brutal interactions because of a life they did not chose. As a librarian who provides books for a school community with a similar mindset to the one Sarah Myer grew up, I will be using this book to serve as a reality check for patrons. With any luck, this book will open the eyes of students across the nation.

I’ve just finished reading this wonderful ARC and this story has unravelled a few emotions, I still try to identify.
However, I felt a bit seen, for other reasons. I’m not Asian American. But being Greek German is… certainly also nothing too fun all the time. I totally understood the feeling of not being enough. And the therefore grown fear and other emotions. My youth was turbulent too. I might have not lashed out as often either but I do remember moments I felt like my personal space and wish for peace have been violated. And the protagonist or better said, Sarah might have just felt the same way about things.
I’ve cried a few times reading this or at least have been close to tears because there were quite some relatable remarks and just similar questions I’ve asked myself when I was younger. I’m glad to have found this. It’s a wonderful memoir and certainly, anyone can feel at least a few bits of themselves shown in there.

I read a ton of adoption themed books and as an adoptive mom I'm always seeking out new ones to explore. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of Monstrous. Sarah Myer has such talent as an artist and writer. I don't normally read graphic novels but devoured this one. Well done. Five stars!

I would like to extend my thanks to NetGalley, the FierceReads team, and the author for sending me an e-arc of this book to read and review.

Monstrous is a graphic novel/memoir detailing Sarah's childhood as she overcame racism and bullying, while learning more about her anxiety, her passion for art and anime, and being adopted into a family of a difference race than hers.

I highly recommend grabbing tissues because the bullying Sarah endured and pain she felt was real, raw, and had me tearing up. Given the honesty and context of the story, I can see many readers reading this and appreciating it for what it's doing discussing both being a trans-racial adoptee but what it's like to constantly feel and be treated as different, as other. Even though some aspects of the story are harsh and hard to swallow, there were moments to breath and felt gentler, as if speaking to younger Sarah or a younger reader. I enjoyed this story and I am excited to see what this author creates in the future.

More to come

Phew. I hate when I don't love memoirs because I feel so bad rating them less than 5 stars- it's someone's life story, who am I to tell them it wasn't entertaining? Keep this in mind with the rest of this review.

Monstrous follows the early life of Sarah, an adopted Korean American living in Rural America in the 90s and early 2000s. Racism runs rampant in her small farm town, and despite her parents being open and understanding people, the rest of the town struggles to accept Sarah and her "differentness". Sarah also doesn't make it easy on them to accept her by being loud and eccentric. Sarah's story starts with her going to school and ends with her getting accepted into college. Through this entire 15ish year timeline we see nothing ever really changes for her, her classmates bully her and never accept her as herself- save the few people she is eventually able to call friend. And Sarah struggles for a very long time to address these feelings and her reactions to being bullied. Luckily by the end of her story, she finds acceptance in herself and ways to redirect her feelings towards her classmates who are much less than kind. Eventually Sarah goes on to art school and even sells art at a comicon.

If I were to rate this story as a story itself and not based on the fact that it was someone's real life experience, I would give it 2/5 stars. Sarah is an unlikeable character, she doesn't do anything to help herself and further feeds into the bullying. It's hard that she never had any real positives in her life, the few that existed were such small blips in this story they were hardly worth remembering page to page. This was a story only about the struggles and how hard it is to be considered different in a time and place where being different is never accepted. Sarah focused in so much on how negative and terrible her life was, it made me as a reader feel negative and terrible about this book. I just kept waiting for the next good thing to happen, ANY good thing to happen. And even at the end I'm still not sure there was anything good.

I recognize that for adolescents, being in situations like this DO feel like there is no good going on and that everything sucks constantly and there are no bright days. It's all struggle and misery and sadness. That can be and probably is 100% true. However. That does not a good story make. Readers want that joy, that thing that gives them hope if they find themselves in the same situation. This didn't give it.

I feel terrible for Sarah. Maybe this wasn't the story for me. But this wasn't enjoyable to me.

A wonderful and emotional autobiography about growing up different. The illustrations portrayed the feelings of the individuals correctly.

Thank you NetGalley and First Second Books for giving me the opportunity to read this!

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-book for review through Netgalley. Trigger warning for depictions of racism, homophobia, ableism, and bullying.)

At the time of this writing, we're only 49 days into the year, and I've been lucky enough to discover more favorite reads in this month and a half than in all of 2022. The streak continues with MONSTROUS: A TRANSRACIAL ADOPTION STORY, which is #9!

Comic book artist Sarah Myer (they/them) was born in South Korea and adopted by a white couple living in rural Maryland. Growing up in a conservative small town was hard enough as a non-white kid in a blended adoptive family - Sarah and their older sister Lizzie were two of just a handful of Asian kids in their school - but Sarah was different in other ways as well, even if it took them a while to fully understand and articulate the differences. In the interim, Sarah used the language they were most well-versed in to understand their un-belonging: "Monsters, aliens, mermaids, and mutants seemed like a good fit."

From a young age, Sarah was plagued by insecurity, low self-esteem, anxiety, fits of rage and violence, and vivid nightmares (particularly concerning the inner workings of the human body - a problem that was only exacerbated by their mother's breast cancer diagnosis). They excelled at art, especially drawing, and a childhood viewing of THE LITTLE MERMAID led to an obsession with mermaids - and a realization that their passion could one day sustain a career.

As Sarah got older, their "otherness" only grew, as did the bullying: racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, and otherwise. Their interest in cartoons evolved into an obsession with SAILOR MOON and anime - years, if not decades, before anime became mainstream. As their hormone-addled classmates became fixated on the opposite sex (heteronormativity being the rule; a scene wherein the "gifted and talented" class discusses Mathew Shepard's murder is downright horrifying), Sarah remained mostly oblivious ... until developing a crush on Iris, a fellow theater geek. They often cosplayed as male characters as a pretext to dress how they wanted; as a way of expressing their queerness; or as a sort of armor against the outside world: "If I was in a costume, though, I felt safe. I was someone else." Sarah's small stature collided with stereotypes about "meek Asian women" and her supposedly "childish" interest in cartoons to further alienate them from their peers.

Perhaps this is why they were rarely punished (or received help) for their violent outbursts. Sarah depicts four instances where they lashed out physically against racist bullies. While it's hard not to cheer Sarah on (particularly when defending against physical harm; dad says what we're all thinking), their uncontrolled (or untreated) anger is clearly a problem. Sarah likens their anger to a monster: one that was self-created - and, thus, must also be self-conquered. Although, to be honest, this comparison seems unfair: the racist/sexist/ableist/homophobic bullies, who were tolerated/encouraged by the school administration, are at least equally at fault.

Sarah found bright spots where they could: art was a refuge, especially in the form of the after school GT Art Club, and they also discovered an affinity for acting when they land the part of Gavroche in LES MISERABLES. And, of course, as an adult Sarah is doing exactly what they dreamed of: writing, drawing, and teaching art.

While MONSTROUS is at its core a story about the author's experience as transracial adoptee, it's also highly relatable to anyone who's ever felt different, alien, or like an outsider. Monstrous. I use the word "compelling" a lot - maybe too much - but hey, if it fits (*shrug*). MONSTROUS isn't just a coming-of-age story, but perhaps one of the most evocative ones I've read. A graphic novel is the perfect medium for Sarah's storytelling, allowing them to give complex feelings physical form. And the artwork is simply marvelous: equal parts beautiful and grotesque, often simultaneously.