#IMWAYR: Feelings!
Two in a row, y'all! I have a second book review for you this week, and it's another story very much worth sharing. So let's dive in!
Feelings
A Story in Seasons
Written and illustrated by Manjit Thapp
Young adult/adult · Graphic memoir(-ish) · 2021
· · · The publisher says: · · ·
A stunning illustrated journey through one young woman’s year of feelings—from the saturated highs of early summer to the gray isolation of late winter.
Enter Manjit Thapp’s Feelings, where you’ll find moods that change as quickly as the weather; the different shades of anxiety and hope that each new season brings; and the stages of joy and pain that fuel our growth. From the spark of possibility and jolt of creativity in High Summer, to the need for release from anxiety and pressure during Monsoon, to the desolation and numbness of Winter, Feelings implores us to consider the seasons of our own emotional journeys.
Articulating and validating the range of feelings we all experience, this is a book that allows us to feel connected and comforted by the experiences that make us human.
· · · · · ·
This is so beautiful. I'm glad to have read it right after Lavender Clouds, which, like this book, is a mental health graphic memoir (though with a very different style). Last week, I was wondering if I could give Lavender Clouds as a gift, since it packs such an emotional gut punch—I'd feel extremely comfortable giving Feelings as a gift, since it is every bit as relatable, not quite as intense a journey, and gorgeous from start to finish.
Manjit Thapp tells a story of a woman (inspired by herself) and her emotions over the course of a year. And gosh, her journey is both relatable and enlightening. There's actually a lot of themes this book shares with Lavender Clouds, like how mental health affects productivity and creativity, or how it affects relationships, or the negative self-talk it generates. But where Bex Ollerton approaches her experiences in Lavender Clouds with zany, quick-moving snapshots, Thapp approaches her experiences in Feelings with an immaculate, precise narrative arc. If Ollerton is capturing the uncontrolled chaos that exists inside the mind when we are feeling low, Thapp is capturing the control that our feelings exert on our state of mind from outside, unreachable by conscious command.
Part of how Thapp conveys that feelings are things we get swept up in, things that carry us on a journey (rather than the other way around), is by equating them to forces of nature—specifically, the seasons. She has thought out every detail about how the seasons relate to our natural flow of emotions, and this metaphor is extremely effective for giving the story a structure, and making such abstract concepts tangible in readers' minds.
Something I found particularly thought-provoking about the seasons metaphor is the idea that feelings are cyclical—that just as summer and winter will come around again, the high highs and low lows will come around again too. I've felt lately like my feelings have been strongly dichotomous, and I've wished that they would level out—and maybe they will, but maybe it's just the natural way of things to have the good days alongside the bad.
Another piece of meaning I found really impactful in the seasons metaphor involves Thapp's treatment of summer. She equates the intensity and brightness of summer to the intensity and brightness of creativity, and being social, and making the most of life's many moments. In just one chapter, she depicts so much of the beauty and joy of life. But as summer continues on, she shows how this same intensity can become draining—she likens it to a sun that is shining too hot on the people and plants below, drying them out. I'm in awe of how clever this metaphor is, especially because I think it speaks to something very real. I have a very obsessive brain that can fly down a rabbit hole if need be, and while this isn't fully healthy, I think I've started to lean away from pursuits (like writing poetry) that are sometimes so engaging that I can't get out of them. I tend to imagine it as trying not to submerge my head underwater with one thing, so that I can keep a balance of different things in life. So I found it really powerful that Thapp acknowledges how the joy and creative force that motivate her can also leave her sapped of nourishment, making the momentum hard to sustain.
This book is deeply insightful, and it's also utterly GORGEOUS. I think it may have the most beautiful art of any graphic novel I've read in 2024. (And the words aren't falling behind—Thapp is as much a wordsmith as she is an artist.) There are so many wildly inventive page and panel layouts—illustrations within objects like clocks or calendars, rigid panels like windows with contents that slip through their boundaries, jumbles of thoughts and worries, even a panel of what it looks like to literally be tied up in memories. When Thapp depicts her internal monologue, she draws a floating head of herself above her shoulder, with a neutral expression—unsettling enough to be dangerous, yet familiar enough to be easy to listen to. The art in this book finds beauty and meaning in the mundane, with telephones made colorful with possibility, or moments spent standing numbly in the light of the refrigerator. The art is so colorful and cleverly drawn and meaningful that I wish I could frame all these panels or pages. I feel like Thapp has created a visual microcosm of human life within this book, with all its vividness and strangeness and hurt.
I found this book very randomly at a Half Price Books a few months back, and I really hope it doesn't disappear into the ether of books that were published once and then drowned under a deluge of newer books. Because Feelings is different. Manjit Thapp may depict a version of herself that struggles with creativity under the weight of her emotions, but she has a creative vision that's more defined, clear, and purposeful than the vast majority of her contemporaries. And that makes for a book where she's done all the labor on the front-end, to create a narrative of human experience that is so thought-out, you'll be able to understand it and see yourself in it immediately.
Odds and ends!
I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving! We had a very nice celebration with my grandmother for lunch, and then just my immediate family for dinner. I love Thanksgiving food so much—I think I'm going to ask my mom if she can teach me how to make the desserts, so I can make them more often.
It was good for me to have some time off—I was a little bit off my rocker earlier in the week, but then the time off gave me space to think, and I came to some helpful realizations that will benefit me in my self-care.
Also, my bag from Bellroy that I described last week has arrived, and it is every bit as perfect as I hoped it would be. Hopefully this will be my bag for years to come!
Also-also, I got my first oil change! It felt like an exciting milestone for me as a first-time car owner. My Subaru is ready to go!
Lastly, many of you have probably read the MG novel Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper. I haven't read the two sequels, but I've read the original and linked my (very old, and probably very bad) review. If you've read it, I wanted to give you a heads-up that there is now a film adaptation on Disney+! I haven't seen it, but if you're a fan of the book, I bet it's worth a watch!
The Kidlit Lovers' Meetup!
Good news! Our SEVENTH Kidlit Lovers' Meetup is officially scheduled for:
Saturday, December 14
4-5 PM Pacific / 5-6 PM Mountain / 6-7 PM Central / 7-8 PM Eastern
Virtual (via Zoom)
As always, these meetups are a chance for us kidlit book bloggers and readers (and anyone else who wants to join in on the fun) to connect and discuss books, reading, blogging, and more!
I've decided to stop using RSVP forms because it was getting confusing. Instead, sign up for the meetup mailing list so you can get the Zoom link for this meetup and all future meetups as they are scheduled. (You can also click that link to learn more about the meetup format, if you're curious!)
(I suspect it's also going to get confusing to have two mailing lists, one through Mailchimp for blog posts and one through regular email for meetups—but I can't think of a better solution right now!)
I love finding books I enjoy randomly, like at the library. This sounds like a great story that many of us could get insight into our own feelings. You're right that we have ups and downs in our feelings, no matter whether our life is going as we want or not. I'm glad you had a good Thanksgiving. Me too.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you had a nice Thanksgiving & break, Max. This is a lovely review & my library has it! What you've shared reminds me already of the new book I've just started, the emotions of a teen in conflict, sent off to a camp by her parents. I enjoyed reading what you shared about summer, too! Have a great week ahead!
ReplyDeleteNow I have the 1970s song playing through my mind. Glad you've been finding books that really speak to you. It's interesting to see the generational differences in what you like. And you should definitely learn to make desserts so you can stake your claim early. I took over pies from my mother, so now I never have to negotiate what I have to bring! Hope the time off helped.
ReplyDeleteI love Half Price Books, I wish they have locations here in Canada! No Thanksgiving here for us, ours was back in October, ha ha. I think learning to embrace to ups and downs of my feelings was a watershed moment for me, as an adult. I have generalized anxiety disorder and OCD, and when things were bad I'd panic that they'd always feel that bad, but through the years I've slowly come to accept that things do change, and that even when things feel at their worst, they will improve, I just have to hold fast to the hope. <3 And woohoo for that new bag!!
ReplyDeleteOh Feelings sounds very good and it's a book that so many could benefit from reading. I, too, like the idea of seasons relating to moods.
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ReplyDeleteGreat review! I added both Lavender Clouds and Feelings to my reading list. I usually treat myself to a couple graphic novels at the end of the year, and it's a strong bet it'll be those two! :) Glad you had a nice Thanksgiving-- that always seems to make the holiday season nicer. The theme of Feelings reminds me of a workshop I went to earlier this year that was about leaning into the idea that our lives have seasons and that we tend to think of always needing to be super productive (which the presenter refers to as a summer season) but that there are slower seasons and that we need to allow our lives to transition naturally rather than always trying to keep things the same. I definitely need to revisit those ideas. Thanks for sharing your review and prompting lots of good thoughts. I love the way you described the artwork and writing in the book. They're both powerful components, and it sounds like this author nailed them both!
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