Constantly

GG (I’m Not Here) returns with her signature elegant, austere visuals and minimal text to render this affecting account of a young woman’s struggle with depression and anxiety. The unnamed woman awakens from troubled sleep and tries to complete her morning routine. She does her stretches, prepares coffee, waters the plants, showers, and gets dressed, all the while battling dark thoughts, which are represented by ghostly, grasping silhouetted hands, alternately pulling and pushing at her. Interspersed are glimpses of the woman’s notebook, which reveal jotted notes in often desperate terms—“I don’t want to eat, I don’t want to sleep”—though every complaint is leavened with a kernel of hope (“I don’t want to live” is followed by “I don’t want to die”). The young woman’s face is never seen fully in any one panel, which underscores her yearning to hide from the world; the color scheme of muted, desaturated pinks and grays conveys a sense of surface calm barely hiding the chaos of her conflicting emotions. It all unfolds like a film strip, with an eerie, claustrophobic atmosphere. Though the narrative is deceptively simple, GG imbues every page with empathy and insight; the intimate view begs close reading and will strike as all too familiar to those who’ve felt similarly trapped in their own heads. [em](Jan.) [/em]