Fans of Allie Brosh are sure to love Anxietyland, the clever graphic memoir by Gemma Correll. Correll's story begins in the summer of 2018 when she was in the middle of a weeks-long anxiety spiral at her home in Northern California. She envisions her mind as a carnival of sorts. It's called Anxietyland and has attractions including the Worry-Go-Round, Hanxiety Falls, and more.
Correll takes readers back to her childhood in England, revealing how anxiety stalked her from an early age. Her first panic attack occurred in the elevator at the mall, but at the time, she didn't have words for what ailed her. Throughout school and university Correll struggled to cope, but she always felt that therapy sounded "very fancy and self-indulgent. And therefore, very un-British," so she'd never tried it. However, in 2018, she became desperate and admitted herself into a voluntary daytime "partial hospitalization program" near Berkeley, Calif. There, Correll spent eight hours a day working through her anxiety and the depression she was diagnosed with in college. Correll's simple, whimsical art comes in two shades: blues for her present mental health work, and reds and pinks for her undiagnosed and stressful early years.
Tender and vulnerable, Anxietyland sensitively explores one direction that anxiety and depression can take. Correll shares anecdotes from her darkest days but also shows how the hospital program helped her finally confront her distress. Anxietyland is perfect for those who believe in using humor to get through hard times. --Jessica Howard, former bookseller, freelance book reviewer