Quiet Girl in a Noisy World: An Introvert’s Story, by Debbie Tung
Description: (from Andrews McMeel Publishing)
This illustrated gift book of short comics illuminates author Debbie Tung’s experience as an introvert in an extrovert’s world. Presented in a loose narrative style that can be read front to back or dipped into at one’s leisure, the book spans three years of Debbie’s life, from the end of college to the present day. In these early years of adulthood, Debbie slowly but finally discovers there is a name for her lifelong need to be alone: she’s an introvert.
The first half of the book traces Debbie’s final year in college: socializing with peers, dating, falling in love (with an extrovert!), moving in, getting married, meeting new people, and simply trying to fit in. The second half looks at her life after graduation: finding a job, learning to live with her new husband, trying to understand social obligations when it comes to the in-laws, and navigating office life. Ultimately, Quiet Girl sends a positive, pro-introvert message: our heroine learns to embrace her introversion and finds ways to thrive in the world while fulfilling her need for quiet.
Expected publication: November 30th 2017.
A review copy (eARC) of this book was provided by the publisher through Netgalley. Some things might change in the final copy.
As soon as I saw the title and cover of this book, I felt drawn to it. I knew that this was one I would deeply enjoy and connect to. I also was very eager to read it thanks to the small review Shari wrote on goodreads!
The official description of this book is really good so I won’t repeat what it is already saying about the way this book is structured, since it’s all up there!
This book has comic strips that will make introverts go “I do that too!” or “THIS!” and “so that explains it…” and feel accepted, understood. I would greatly recommend to gift this book to the introverts in your life, but to also let extroverts read this and understand how introvert people work. Especially introverted bookworms! So yeah, this was very relatable to me.
I loved that she had a very supportive partner, that she could find relief in stories and how she represented her unease when confronted with crowded places.
This is a breath of fresh air, especially since the author learns to accept her introversion and learns to say no, to not push herself to do things that make her uncomfortable or feel bad.
Highly recommended. Plus you might have seen some of these comic strips already going viral on twitter since so many people relate to this! Here’s Debbie Tung’s twitter where you can see a lot of those sweet strips (in better quality than the ones I put below 
)
This also made me think in some ways to “La Différence Invisible” in French, a sort of educational graphic novel from a young woman coming to understand that she is autistic. It follows a bit of the same pattern than this one here, but with some slight differences, not as fun and cute but still very interesting and eye opening. It’s not perfect but there are so few books about this subject in French (especially with actually autistic people involved), I’d say it’s a great one with some minor flaws (use of the puzzle piece at the end for example) that could help a lot of people to understand things about themselves or people they know.
a dragon in space 