'Living with Viola', by Rosena Fung [BOOK REVIEW]

'Living With Viola', by Rosena Fung

Title: Living with Viola

Author: Rosena Fung

Genre (s): Nonfiction, Mental Health

Language: English

Publisher: Annick Press

Publication Date: 26th October 2021

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Link to buy the book!

Thank you to the publisher Annick Press and Edelweiss for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. 

Living with Viola is a middle grade story about Livy, and how she feels about the world and everything that surrounds her, how anxiety and fear doesn't seem to let her go. It's a story about mental health in teenagers, how many factors can affect them. 

It's a graphic novel that explores feelings and negative thoughts. There are two topics that I find them of more importance: racism and anxiety and panic attacks. I won't talk about these topics here because it will be spoilers from the book and I don't want to ruin the experience of reading such great work. 

Regarding the illustrations, they are beautiful and full of color, and are so illustrative. They capture the feeling of the character in a way so beautifully perfect. 

I find Living with Viola a very different kind of book, because I have read about teenagers struggling with bullying, with anxiety and home problems, and school or life problems, but I haven't ever read a story like this, that feels more than real. Of course, I've loved the few stories I've read lately about these issues. The author captures and writes the anxiety and how it feels, the feeling and how you might be, so good and so real... Maybe it's because of the author herself, Rosena Fung, that wrote it from her own experiences with anxiety and her Chinese heritage. 

It's a book that I highly recommend to any teenager, or to any person, for that matter, because it's a story that talks about things that affect everyone. In fact, I do think that it should created more awareness between people on these topics, to understand and to learn more about what the other person could be dealing with. To everyone that haven't read this book yet: I encourage you to read it, you won't regret it. As I say whenever I read such a good book concerning these topics (anxiety, high school,...), it's a must-read for everyone. The english is easy to understand, and it's a fast reading. Also, the dialogues felt very natural. 

This book comes out on 26th October 2021, so stay tuned! 

#LivingWithViola #Edelweiss