At first it seems like just the same run of the mill flu everyone in school has but it starts Raina's brain tumbling into total chaos. It soon becomes clear that Raina’s tummy trouble isn’t going away… and it coincides with her worries about food, school, and changing friendships. Anyway, aside from validating my childhood experience, this book is also typical Telgemeier: funny, authentic, reassuring, and all-around perfectly pitched for the middle school crowd (as well as the lingering middle-school kid lurking in all of us Olds).

While the feeling is difficult to explain in words, Raina does an apt job communicating the feeling through images of the character falling through the bathroom floor while struggling to stay above. It's not pleasant memories to go back to but it did help reading a comic on someone who went through the same thing. School Library Journal, starred review Praise for Guts:* "The story both normalizes therapy and shows a child developing useful coping mechanisms for anxiety in a way that will reassure, even inspire, readers. Guts” is about a young girl named Raina who is afflicted with stomach pains and a constant fear of throwing up. Her interactive journal, Share Your Smile, encourages budding creators to try their hand at making comics of their own.

Yet another graphic novel for older children/middle grades by rock star graphic novelist Raina Telgemeier, and this one is maybe her most serious and personal, dealing with her lifelong (and continuing! She is also the creator of Drama and Ghosts, and is the adapter and illustrator of the first four Baby-sitters Club graphic novels. The next figure to join Good Smile Company and Max Factory's 'Wonderful Hobby Selection' series of top quality figures is none other than the berserker 'Guts' from the popular manga series 'Berserk'. And without a doubt two of the biggest roadblocks in my recovery were feeling like this was something "wrong" about myself that I needed to hide and a firm belief that I should be able to get things under control myself.

The only reason I struggled with it is because it's not really about anything nor does it have the typical hallmarks of plot. Now I just live my life doing my best to survive through the anxiety that does still exist in my brain.Where Smile is about Raina's insecurities about her braces, and Sisters is about her difficult relationship with her sister, Guts is about her anxiety. SmileThe true story of how Raina severely injured her two front teeth when she was in the sixth grade, and the dental drama that followed! The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Though it is intended to connect to others who have similar problems, this book made me uncomfortable and a little anxious throughout, since for many early years of my life I had stomach issues related in part to anxiety, partly genetic. Her anxiety only led to more stomach troubles, and she also dealt with a school bully and a friend moving away.