It's All Absolutely Fine - Ruby Elliot - ★.½

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AUTHOR: Ruby Elliot
GENRE: Graphic Memoir
PUBLICATION DATE: November 17, 2016
RATING: 1.5 stars.


In a Nutshell: A mental health memoir in graphic novel format. Mixes text and illustrative accompaniments. Too dry and boring.


This graphic memoir details the author’s struggles with several mental health issues such as bulimia, mood disorder, anxiety, and body dysphoria. It is not entirely in graphic novel format; a part of the book is written in ordinary prose and the rest of it is in comics style.

The themes are great, and also sounds fairly genuine due to this being an OwnVoices work. But the execution was a bit too disjointed for my liking. There is no flow to the overall book, with topics switching across sections at random. The content is repetitive despite the themed chapters.
The tone is way too self-pitying and defensive. Not sure how to feel about this. I get that mental health is a journey, but if this isn't meant to be your private diary, why make your rants public? Isn't the purpose of such a book to make other sufferers feel seen and heard? But this book is just “I, me, my struggles” and nothing else. “Poor me” isn't an entertaining tune to hear on loop, especially when someone else is singing it.

The content is honest though; I especially appreciated the section about food and the author’s struggles with eating disorders.

Not sure if the book was trying to be funny on the whole as such memoirs often are. But just in case it helps, I didn’t crack even a little smile while reading it. None of the comics felt humorous.

And no, the above issues aren’t a result of any lack of personal experience of mental health issues on my side. On the contrary, I should have been able to relate to many of her feelings of inadequacy, but was left almost entirely unmoved by the writing style. I also didn’t like the foul language, though it might be excused as the author’s actual style of speaking in real life.

Sadly, the artwork is even worse than the writing. I didn’t like the B&W illustrations at all. I pick up graphic novels to see art better than scribbles… 😐

Wishing the author the very best in her mental health journey, but this book just wasn’t for me. It was boring, repetitive, and whiny. Might work better with those who are okay with a defensive-aggressive tone. The GR rating is high enough, so I am quite an outlier. But IMHO, there are better graphic mental-health memoirs out there.

Could be triggering to some, so check out the content warnings online.

1.5 stars, rounding up wherever applicable for the themes and intent.

This was a library read.

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