Title: In LimboAuthor: Deb JJ Lee
First Published: March 7, 2023
Publisher: First Second
Pages: 352
Genre: Coming of Age, Memoir, Mental Health, Non-Fiction, Young Adult
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
Rating:
A debut YA graphic memoir about a Korean-American girl's coming-of-age story―and a coming home story―set between a New Jersey suburb and Seoul, South Korea.
Ever since Deborah (Jung-Jin) Lee emigrated from South Kora to the United States, she's felt her otherness.
For a while, her English wasn’t perfect. Her teachers can’t pronounce her Korean name. Her face and her eyes―especially her eyes―feel wrong.
In high school, everything gets harder. Friendships change and end, she falls behind in classes, and fights with her mom escalate. Caught in limbo, with nowhere safe to go, Deb finds her mental health plummeting, resulting in a suicide attempt.
But Deb is resilient and slowly heals with the help of art and self-care, guiding her to a deeper understanding of her heritage and herself.
This stunning debut graphic memoir features page after page of gorgeous, evocative art, perfect for Tillie Walden fans. It's a cross section of the Korean-American diaspora and mental health, a moving and powerful read in the vein of Hey, Kiddo and The Best We Could Do.
I don’t think anything could have prepared me for In Limbo. It is a deeply personal memoir about the author’s adolescence navigating high school, immigrant parents, and mental health. It is an emotionally raw memoir and one of the absolute best that I’ve ever read.
Deb was born in South Korea but was raised in the United States. They deal with microaggressions and bullying from peers throughout school, including in Korean schools. Deb is an outsider no matter what space they inhabit, and I found this to be extremely relatable to my own experiences as an Asian American.
Deb’s mother is both loving and extremely abusive, and this dysfunctional relationship is harmful to Deb’s mental health and ability to form healthy connections with others. This hit so close to home for me that it hurt to read. Many of Deb’s experiences reflected my own and I felt so seen.
The graphic memoir as a whole felt like an outpouring and I appreciated Deb’s sincerity, balancing all of the ugly memories with good ones. I wept so much reading this memoir, even after I finished the book. The art throughout the graphic novel is outstanding and fits the tone of the memoir perfectly, Deb is extremely talented and I am so happy that they have been able to turn their passion for art and build a successful career.
“I love you when you’re at your lowest just as much as at your best. Growing up is about being sad and angry sometimes. You were just being yourself. It’s hard.”
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About Deb JJ Lee
Deb JJ Lee is a Korean American artist currently living in Brooklyn, NY. They have appeared in the New Yorker, Washington Post, NPR, Google, Radiolab, PBS, and more. Books they have illustrated include The Invisible Boy by Alyssa Hollingsworth (Roaring Brook Press, 2020) and The Other Side of Tomorrow by Tina Cho (HarperCollins, 2024). They enjoy reality tv, sparkling water, and pretending to be an extrovert.