Plot
Sydney seems like a normal, rudderless 15-year-old freshman. She hangs out underneath the bleachers, listens to music in her friend's car, and gets into arguments with her annoying little brother - but she also has a few secrets she's only shared in her diary. Like how she's in love with her best friend Dina, the bizarre death of her war veteran father, and those painful telekinetic powers that keep popping up at the most inopportune times.
After his first two critically heralded graphic novels, Celebrated Summer and The End of the Fucking World (recently adapted into a TV show on the UK's Channel 4 and soon to be streaming stateside on Netflix), Forsman once again expertly channels the teenage ethos in a style that evokes classic comic strips while telling a powerful story about the intense, and sometimes violent, tug of war between trauma and control. I Am Not Okay with This collects all of Forsman's self-published minicomic series into one volume. It comments naturally on familial strain, sexual confusion, and PTSD in his usual straightfaced-but-humorous style, and firmly stakes his place among the world's best young cartoonists.