Something that should be fairly evident if you look at my reading history is that I love graphic novels. I’ve loved comics ever since I was in elementary school reading first the comic strips in the newspaper, then Barbie and Sonic the Hedgehog comics. The explosion of graphic novels for middle readers, is, in my opinion, absolutely awesome and I wish there had been even half of today’s selection when I was a kid. Raina Telgemeier has been such a visible part of that explosion.

Guts is one of her autobiographical volumes, like Smile and Sisters, that deals with the events of Raina’s childhood. This time the main subject addressed is her struggle with anxiety, which took the form of panic attacks and stomach upsets (thus the title of the book).

I really like how mental health is treated in this book. As someone who dealt with anxiety as a kid (still deals with, tbh), it’s nice to see it addressed, especially in a way that’s in no way belittling. It points out the ways that our society’s tendency to hide such things has a negative impact, while still showing that, ultimately, mental health shouldn’t be any different than physical health. The protagonist eventually starts seeing a therapist, something she hides from her friends because she fears their reactions. When she does eventually reveal this fact she’s instead met with small chorus of ‘oh, that’s not so weird’.

The art, as usual in a Telgemeier book, is colorful with animated emotional expressions. The backgrounds are simple, which fits well with the overall art style while also allowing the readers full attention to focus on the characters. What is interesting in this one, however, is the way she incorporated a bunch of green in certain segments of the book- specifically, what you could call puke-green- to show first Raina’s anxiety-induced stomach issues, and then subsequently an anxiety-attack in general.

The thing that does frustrate me a little is the fact that the bad behavior of one character only slightly gets addressed. It’s not jarring, really, but I hate when a bully-character seems to have no repercussions at all. It’s never addressed by the adults, other than a teacher essentially telling the protagonist to be nice to them in hopes that they’ll be nice to the protagonist. Of course, the teacher sees what is happening behind the scenes with this character, but still… I wish there had been some acknowledgement of the problem beyond the admonishment to be kind.