The Fire Never Goes Out

April 20, 2020
A scrapbook of diary entries, drawings, illustrated song lyrics, photos, and sticky notes honestly captures the uncertainty of youth in pseudo-real time. Between 2011 and 2019, comics artist Noelle Stevenson created year-in-review blog posts for her online followers, presented and expanded upon here. The years include early and astronomical artistic and professional successes, as she leverages a Tumblr following into a book deal (Nimona) and a Netflix show (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power), as well as mental health challenges that ebb, flow, and eventually culminate in an unnamed diagnosis. Depicting herself with a range of hairstyles and frequently with a hole in her center, she documents her spiritual struggles, burgeoning independence, and deep fears, often in the form of gentle letters to her younger self. By conveying key events primarily via generalized summaries—about coming out as queer, workplace burnout, secret projects, troubled relationships, and mental crescendos—Stevenson sometimes undermines her own raw emotion, which is on clearer display where she depicts, for example, discovering that her grandma accepts her sexuality or describes the titular fire as a thing that “lit you up or burned you apart.” Stevenson’s illustrations are sweet, simple, and confident. If the memoir feels a bit scattered at times, so does the experience of youth itself; Stevenson brings unique and endearing insight to the messy process of growing up. Ages 14–up.

Starred review from May 15, 2020
Grades 8-12 *Starred Review* In 2011, 19-year-old Noelle Stevenson began her annual tradition of recapping her year through a Tumblr post, illustrating her prose reflections with spot comics. Over the course of a decade, she went on to huge success as a writer and artist, becoming the youngest ever National Book Award finalist, winning Eisner Awards, becoming showrunner for Netflix's She-Ra?and cataloguing her triumphs along the way. Here, those posts are compiled into a memoir of Stevenson's twenties, richly supplemented by additional and often haunting comics that add layers to her self-portrayal. The sum of these parts is a deeply affecting, heart-wrenchingly honest exploration of not just the reality behind her success but also the struggle faced by many new adults to discover themselves. Stevenson lays bare her own struggles with Christianity, body image, romance, independence, isolation, and most crucially, mental health, with her own particular demon being unnamed but described as a fire, eating her alive. Most of the work is fine-lined grayscale floating in white space, including the hand-lettered text, adding to the sense of isolation and encroaching desperation while also deepening the intimacy. This work of pure vulnerability and ultimately hope may serve as a vital lifeline for young fans in need of having their own inner struggles reflected in their heroes. An incredibly brave offering from one of comics' most precious creators.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

March 1, 2020
The portrait of an artist as a young (wo)man. Artist, writer, and youngest National Book Award finalist to date, Stevenson's rise to prominence in the graphic-novel industry was meteoric, yet fame couldn't fill the gaping hole she often felt in herself. Adrift during her college years, Stevenson found a fan base in drawing fan art. A summer internship with BOOM! Studios--later her publishers--offered a glimpse of her future...and doubtlessly contributed to her career. But independence and isolation, struggles with her faith and sexuality, and serious mental health issues persisted despite success. Otherwise told from a first-person point of view, the book sometimes detours into second person for discussions of mental illness, which may elicit a sense of intimacy and immediacy for readers. Both the art and narrative thread are intermittent and somewhat impressionistic; the illustrations are largely in grayscale, often with characters adrift in white space, lending a feeling of rawness but also incompleteness. Absent are the bright colors, sly humor, and polish of her other pieces, such as Nimona (2015) and the Lumberjanes series. Rather than a how-to guide to publishing or a behind-the-scenes peek at Stevenson's artwork and process, this is a highly personal tale of an emotional journey that somehow also manages to feel universal. A snapshot of success and struggles that adds to the conversation about mental health. (Graphic memoir. 14-20)

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