Guts may be a graphic novel and it may be intended for a younger audience, but I found myself devouring the story and imagery, completing it in just around a half hour.
The way that anxiety and fear and avoidance and coping mechanisms are portrayed is so close to how I have personally experienced it, I almost felt like this book was about me. The beautifully illustrated pages show Raina turning down lunch (artichokes, what she had the night before the, ahem, event), having a panic attack, running to the restroom in the middle of a school presentation, dealing with avoidance and anxiety when her little brother is sick at home, questioning classmates about why they were out the day(s) previous, and so many other very real situations, experienced daily by people of all ages. I came up with every excuse in the book not to step foot back in that classroom, most of my reasons starting and ending with a stomach ache.
I nearly funked my seventh-grade year due to basically the same situation, but mine stemmed from a classmate getting sick in the science classroom. The tummy aches evolve into panic attacks, which affect her life in numerous ways. The lead character, Raina (named after the author, obviously), starts to develop some weird tummy aches after a stomach bug. This is what Guts explores within its graphic pages. It waxes and wanes, and while I will never be rid of it, I am looking forward to it fading into the background of my life once again.Īs a younger child, looking back, I can recognize that a lot of the fear and worry I felt was actually anxiety. For years prior to that, I was mostly fine. I am just now, in fact, coming out of a two-year stretch of heightened anxiety thanks to some health issues. There are times – days, weeks, years even – that are worse than others, and many more that are easier. I have nearly always lived an anxious life.
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