Rosena Fung

Livy has a terrible voice in her head that says mean things to her all the time -- she manages to fight "Viola" off most of the time, with the things she loves, but eventually gets overwhelmed and seeks help.

This is very much in the realistic fiction with friendship drama vein, and I like that the girls involved manage to sort their various disagreements and hurts out. There are clearly points when they don't like each other very much and their friendships suffer, but it doesn't devolve show more into overt bullying as so many other books do.

But mainly, the huge appeal of this book is a focus on mental health that is totally appropriate for upper elementary -- naming the challenge makes it so much easier to talk about these things, and the art really effectively conveys Livy's internal struggle. I think many people can relate to Viola's personal attacks and Livy's valiant efforts to fight them off, and I think this message is particularly needed right now.

Also, Livy struggles with being the child of hard working immigrants and the pressures that many people experience -- anxiety that your home isn't nice enough, that your food is weird, that your parents have multiple jobs, that your parents want a better life for you and interpreting that as a need to achieve good grades and focus on high paid professions when your passions lie elsewhere, criticism from other family members.

Really, this book is just like the dumplings Livy makes with her mom-- a delicious synthesis of many strong ingredients in an appealing package. Just right.

Advanced Reader's Copy Provided by Edelweiss. show less

**received as an ARC from the publisher

You would think that Viola is the protagonist of this graphic novel, but low and behold, Rosena Fung is not out to be obvious with her storytelling! Olivia’s story is at once her own, and contains microcosms of all of our stories - we’ve all been the new kid somewhere in life, we’ve all struggled with mental health, and we’ve all just wanted to be “normal” - making her instantly recognizable and endearing to readers young and old. The story show more opens with Olivia starting at a new middle school, and we immediately see that Olivia’s story might not be as simple as the usual “new kid on the block” tales. Olivia has a ghostly presence following her from class to class - the titular Viola, a manifestation of Olivia’s worst thoughts, who seems bent on ensuring that Olivia is never alone to just be happy. There are moments in the story where Olivia uses the positives in her life to keep Viola’s negativity in cheque, but her presence is always there, hanging around for the next moment of weakness. Olivia’s plight is no stranger to any of us, especially to those of us with demanding families, creative personalities that don’t fit the mold, or even just those of us who have had to change place over the course of our lives, so Fung’s careful storytelling and characterization plays an important harmonizing note alongside other stories of young adulthood. Her vibrant artwork makes Olivia’s creativity a centrepiece of the story as well, both as a means of therapy (creating her works of art), bonding (being the creative force in a group project), and of simple joy (finding inspiration in the magical stories of authors), and moves to explore themes around finding a passionate means of channeling the world (even the negative parts). Since I was privy to an advance copy of this story, my version wasn’t quite as colourful as the full edition, but I can tell from the taste that I got that Fung’s simple colour palette works well with her whimsical, but grounded, style of artwork to emphasize the mood of Olivia’s (and Viola’s) story. show less

Whether belittled for her culture (Olivia’s parents immigrated from China to Canada), being made to feel like she’s uncool for liking unicorns and the color pink, or insecurities over friendships and pleasing her extended family, every step of the way you’ll feel for middle-schooler Olivia and depending on your own experience with anxiety perhaps to some degree identify with her as she struggles to combat the negative voice in her head, embodied by Viola who ridicules Olivia at every show more turn, convincing her she isn’t good enough.

Really well done, I liked the parents involvement in the story and that this didn’t take shortcuts with Olivia’s mental health, her problems don’t magically go away when she finds a friend group, there’s work to be done and bravery required in asking for help and the novel gives you some sense of that, offering hope and a path forward to a potentially happier future for Olivia. show less

Wow, this book is fantastic! It actually made me cry a little. But mostly for good reasons. Living with Viola is about a girl in 6th grade who has started at a new school but things really don’t seem to be going right. Everything she tries to do, there’s a voice in her head (Viola) who shoots Livy down telling her she isn’t good enough, she doesn’t deserve friends, everyone is mad at her and hates her, etc. At times she is able to chase Viola away by doing things she loves and show more spending time with her parents and friends having fun together. But as things seem to add up, it gets harder for her to enjoy things she normally does and to keep the negative thoughts (Viola) away. It’s harder for her to reject those thoughts and she begins to accept some of them as the truth.

By the end, Livy fees able to open up to her parents and to get help and the book even talks about some of the techniques she learns at therapy for overcoming her anxiety and panic disorder. I really love that it shows some of those techniques and how going to therapy was able to truly help Livy be able to cope with day to day stress. I also love that this book was written about a 6th grader and for a middle grade audience because I feel like a lot of people don’t think about kids when they think about mental health disorders like anxiety. But in actuality, the average onset of anxiety disorder is 7 years old, that’s 2nd graders in the US! Also, going into 6th grade is a huge change in a lot of ways and opens up a lot more stress for kids in general. Whether or not they have a mental disorder like anxiety or depression or whatever else, therapy can be really helpful to learn these sorts of coping techniques.

It was so heartwarming to see how supportive Livy’s parents were of her and even when the rest of the family was looking down on some of her behaviors and what the family thinks means a lot to her parents. Anxiety is a scary thing and it’s scary to tell people about it because not only is there a very real stigma, but the anxiety itself makes you think of all the awful things people will think about you if they knew. A book like this where a young girl is able to finally open up about it regardless of her fears is just so amazing show less