Living with Viola

By Saily Marrero

Living With Viola by Rosena Fung is a middle grade graphic novel about Olivia (AKA Livy), a young Canadian Chinese girl, coping with anxiety and panic disorder. Within the first few pages, we’re introduced to Viola, Livy’s anxiety personified as a black and blue version of herself. And whose name is an anagram of Olivia. When Livy feels anxious, Viola arrives, black and blue colors consume the pages, and a large number of speech bubbles appear. The latter shows us the amount of overwhelming and oftentimes negative thoughts Livy has caused by her anxiety. The opposite happens when Livy is relaxed, the colors are bright and warm, dialogue is easy to follow, and Viola is shut off.

We also see the progression of Livy’s anxiety throughout the book and how it affects all aspects of her life. At the beginning of the novel, the things she enjoys like cooking dumplings with her mom, drawing, and reading are accompanied by warm colors like yellow, red, orange, and pink. Other themes discussed in the book are family, friends, and immigration; all of which are affected by Livy’s anxiety. For example, as she hears negative comments about the food that she likes to eat, the books she enjoys reading, and the things she likes to draw, Viola begins to appear more often while she does these things. In another instance, she begins to worry her parents won’t love her after relatives say she needs to be a good daughter by becoming a doctor, something she does not want. This worry is mentioned numerous times throughout the book.

Similar to real life, although she experiences all the symptoms of anxiety and panic disorder, Livy’s experience is not defined as such until she begins seeing a professional. As a result, Fung only offers a brief explanation; “It’s when you get scared even when there isn’t anything frightening” or when “it feels like everything is terrifying” and it becomes overwhelming (p. 225). Even more importantly, the author shows how treatment and having the right tools like anchoring and deep breathing can alleviate anxiety symptoms and improve mental health. Although these tools are not explicitly explained, we see how they work by seeing Livy doing them.

At the end of the novel, readers will find an Author’s Note where the author expresses their own struggles with anxiety and the inspiration for the book but offers no further references or resources on the subject. While the book is catered to a middle grade audience, please be mindful that this book has discussions of mental health and mild representations of xenophobia.

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Saily Marrero, M.S.I. is the Nursing & Health Studies, Psychology, and Biology Librarian at the University of Miami. She enjoys reading Graphic Novels and Romance.