The Fire Never Goes Out: A Memoir in Pictures

I so wanted to like this more. I love Noelle Stevenson's work--Nimona is up there in my top five favorite books of all time--but this fell a little flat for me. The illustrations are nice, but the text is mostly taken from her yearly wrap-up on her blog. Details are incredibly vague, which would make this a very difficult and uninteresting read for someone who hasn't followed her blog for seven years or who isn't familiar with her work. It was like reading a synopsis of a story I already had to know. I wanted so much more.

Beautiful! More about the internal--metaphorical? emotional? -- experience versus what is happening externally. Which I think is rare in a memoir and I loved. The sections when Noelle's older self talked (or comforted) her younger self were powerful and moving for me. I also very much admire and appreciate the author's honesty in discussing her mental illness (interesting she doesn't name it in the book) and the fact she went on medication to treat it -- and how that treatment did not destroy her creativity but, in her case, actually "made creating easier." Also interesting: Noelle chooses to sidestep the specifics of something that happened in 2018. "I won't get into exactly what happened--maybe another time. But it was brutal, and show more swift, and merciless." Though I am curious what actually happened, I came away feeling I understood what emotionally happened, and maybe the section was even more powerful this way. show less

i follow noelles work quite closely. almost immediately after this book was released, he came out as transgender and nonbinary, and stopped using she pronouns. the book jacket exclusively uses "she" pronouns for noelle, and the book makes no overt/explicit allusions to gender--tho any trans person would recognize the dysphoric self-hate and numbness illustrated so clearly on these pages.

both this book and honestly a lot of the plot of "she-ra" make me so upset abt the contract and production process for american media; i love noelles comics abt their trans journey, dealing w gender and dysphoria, and i cant wait to see what they work on next. nimona, she-ra, and this now all ooze w a poignant transmasc story, and i cant wait to see them show more rly bite into this w new recognition. not that every creator needs to center their identity--but noelle DOES center their identity and struggles in their work.

it infuriates me to no end how they had to delay their public transition until AFTER the end of the "girl power" show they helmed. i can only imagine they put this book out when they did, w the material it has, due to a publshing contract. and i hate that show less

A powerful introduction by the author sets high expectations for an amazing graphic memoir, but then the book quickly degenerates to sketchbook doodling and noodling. It wasn't until page 48 that I found out this was a collection of blog entries. (No, I don't read cover copy, reviews, or promotional material for books by authors I like and know I will read regardless.)

The diary-like quality gave some of the material a real sense of immediacy and power, but the year-in-review entries mostly felt like Christmas card family letter material.

The collection picked up toward the end with some almost poetic bits and pieces and allusions to mental health issues, but I was just left yearning for the true graphic memoir outlined in the intro.

I think of this story as more of a book of feelings in hindsight, than a coherent memoir. If you keep that in mind as you enjoy the art and read the comics, you might enjoy it! But if you're expecting a straightforward memoir starting from childhood up to the present (the present in which the book was published), you're going to be disappointed. It's abstract, which I think is the point, since feelings can be so messy, especially when you grow up knowing you're a little different, and when you end up being LGBTQ+ as an adult, while dealing with work, school and other relationships - but even in it's abstractness and messy joy, it feels just a bit empty. I would've liked to know more, but a memoir is only as personal as the person show more writing it allows it to be... show less

More of an art book/blog compilation/scrapbook thing than a memoir. A memoir requires reflecting on the past with a perspective you didn't have at the time, and weaving threads together and forming them into a narrative. This is just a bunch of sketches drawn in the heat of the moment, and year-end reflections that are word-for-word what Stevenson wrote at the time.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the heat-of-the-moment comics about feelings. Stevenson is very good at them. But if you're going into this expecting a cohesive story or, like, any details whatsoever (about his creative process, or what it was like to work on his projects day to day, or even his coming out), you're going to be disappointed.

(review Sept 2020; edited Dec 2023 for show more pronoun updates) show less

There's a lot of good stuff in here, and I'm not sure how I feel about it, much as I'm not sure how I feel about the types of graphic novel memoir that go into all the details -- there's a balance, and this one falls on the vague side. I think that's a strength, because it allows the reader to determine what they will take away and to see themselves in the work. It didn't make me think I knew the creator any better at the ending, but it was kind of cool to see that the fire/hole in the chest thing isn't just me, and I loved the art. Cool.