'Happiness Will Follow' by Mike Hawthorne is a graphic novel autobiography of Mike Hawthorne who was raised by his mother, Blanca.

Mike and his mother Blanca, fought to keep food on the table. They fought a family that didn't want them. Mike and his mother fought too, but that was mainly Mike getting abused by his mother. Blanca has a lot to make her angry, and the only one to take it out on is Mike. He shows how complicated people can be, so Blanca is never just a one dimensional person.

This kind of story can feel pretty one-sided, but Mike Hawthorne makes sure the angles are seen. This must have been a painful and cathartic story to write. Mike's art here is as good as his other work in the Marvel books I know him from. This kind of story takes a lot of courage to tell.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from BOOM! Studios and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

I was pretty happy with this graphic novel memoir. Hawthorne really digs deep and explores the complexities of his relationship with his mother. He acknowledges abuse and emotional manipulation. But also love and empathy. We see how the upheaval, poverty, and trauma of his early childhood have continued impact through his youth and his adulthood. I think what I appreciate about it most was the portrayal of his mother. Visually she changes as she falls apart mentally. And she's never show as a true villain. We can feel his struggle to understand her and the things that motivated her actions.

Thank you NetGalley and BOOM! Studios for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This memoir is both heartwrenching and engrossing. The author 's difficult relationship with his mother is greatly displayed in the detailed illustrations. Hawthorne has to endure the abuse from his mother but he has a hard time blaming her, especially when he takes the time to look into her past. This is a great story that explores what the word home really means and how surviving can also mean losing that connection with your family.

Without sugar coating his life as a Porto Rican in America, the author has written an intriguing memoir. The characters were complex. The dark tales of their everyday life got vivid in every illustrations and narratives. It was an Interesting read.
Thank you Netgalley, Boom! Studios and Archaia publications for the arc copy of the book for review.

This is a graphic memoir that is focused mainly on the author's relationship with his complicated mother. There is a lot of abuse here, and poverty. The author's anger towards the world, fueled by his rough mother, lonely upbringing and racism is palpable, and is by far the best part of this work.

However, as far as story-telling goes, it's uneven. There is some good stuff about Puerto Rico and some great episodes in the author's mother's life. But then there are huge gaps in the narrative that prevented me from understanding the author's journey to normalcy, and his mother's descend to what she'd became. I find this a lot in memoirs - authors, understandably, hold back, or maybe don't have all the information, but the overall picture is always missing

Thank you to Netgalley and BOOM! Studios for providing me with the eARC of Happiness Will Follow by Mike Hawthorne.

Happiness Will Follow by Mike Hawthorne is a graphic memoir that follows Mike Hawthorne, a comic book artist as he talks about growing up as a Puerto Rican in America. While Hawthorne discusses his cultural identity, childhood, growing up with an abusive parent and complex family dynamics and relationships in a raw and honest way and the art in this graphic is amazing, there are a few quick time jumps from the past to the present, which may be distracting and/or confusing for some readers to follow. Overall, this was a great and interesting graphic memoir to read. 4.8/5

This is a heavy story of abuse and identity that the author struggled with. He takes this book to share his mother's story and his discovery of her and his place in the United States. There is a story of hate, anger, and abuse and how a childhood of that can still blossom into a stable life. It's a difficult read at times, but it doesn't shy away from the reality of the situation.

This book is absolutely heart-wrenching and drips with honest emotion. Depending on the moment, the portrayal of the mother is brutal, forgiving, bitter, righteous, a combination of all the above... but always with truth. Hawthorne brings up so many themes and questions about identity, family, forgiveness but offers very little in way of answers. This is not a book one reads to feel good inside; it's a book to read when one wants to understand the complexity that exists in people and our ability to understand some of the layers of that complexity.

Thank you .to the publisher for an advance copy via netgalley!



Ahh what a sweet story of a boy who loved his mom no matter what! The art of this book is amazing!! It tells you story of the harsh life of a little boy that just never fit in. His struggle thru poverty, violence and abuse. And his biggest struggle of them all.... how to raise his little girls for them to have a different life!

An excellent graphic memoir of a boy and his complicated, proud Puerto Rican mother. Excellent art work, simple, yet heart wrenching storyline, and wonderful flow to the story and art work. An excellent read by anyone interested in memoirs.

3.5 stars

This is a very good graphic novel. The writer’s life was a very profoundly complicated one, as was his mother’s, most of the book centers around their relationship, and how they had to survive through poverty and family separation in the 80s and 90s in the US. Originally from Puerto Rico, his mother had a complicated life with a lot of emotional abuse, and superstition that translated into her role as a parent. The writer shows her as a proud woman trying to put a roof over her and her child’s head, but he also shows the terrifying emotional and physical abuse she committed to both him and his older sister. As well as the isolation she created from the rest of their family.

To be honest, as I said, this is a very good book, its hard to talk about and evaluate such a personal story, so the only critiques I have are from an editorial and storytelling point of view. The story is moving and the artwork beautiful, but I could not shake the feeling that this book should have been longer, I feel like certain information was rushed, which gave it less weight to the overall message.

Again, this is a very personal story, and its merits should not be assessed through a simple five-star rating. But as I have to do as a reviewer, my rating is simply from an editorial perspective. The story is beautiful, and to me seems like it was edited down way much more than necessary. Even if most of the events are shocking and disturbing, you can see the complexity behind it all, the social commentary the author was trying to get at. In short, I wish this had been longer, which is a good thing to say about any book.

This book is an amazing insight to the experience of a Puerto Rican man growing up in the US with a single mother. The people in this memoir are compelling, real, and portrayed in stark ways. Read this book to experience other lives, ethnic groups, housing situations, poverty, and many other important perspectives.

This book explored the life of a Puerto Rican boy growing up in a world that had it out for him from the very beginning, by tracing the life that his mother lived. It focuses on the abusive realtionship between him and his mother, and the lengths that she went to keep them afloat.
I found this okay? Maybe I just didn't vibe with it at the time. In saying that, I think the story is important.

A heavy read, that has you just wanting to hug the author and go back in time to help his mom heal from her unspoken traumas. I enjoyed this memoir as it shows how a person is changed by their experiences and the harm that can be caused by not talking through conflicts.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this advance copy.

This book is so interesting and really helps explain issues like stereotypes, discrimination, biases, etc. It is very timely as many of us are working towards confronting our own biases. My only complaint would be that it is too long for the target audience and almost seems more geared towards adults because of that.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
This graphic novel memoir is a true survival story. The illustrations were pretty good but the storyline was sometimes hard to follow. His mother seemed to make what she thought were the best choices to protect her son but he still experienced a lot of abuse and had to quickly learn survival skills.

This book was intense, both in story and artwork. The story had a therapeutic quality and I was so interested in the dynamic of mike's mom as a morally gray character who seemed both good and terrible all at once. The art style wasn't my favorite, but the actual plot was compelling and certain panels kept me captivated. Giving this a 3.5!

A graphic memoir about what it means to be Puerto Rican in America, about love, loss, family, loneliness and most of all, abuse. I hadn't realized that this story would mainly be about eh abuse the author suffered from his mother and how their poverty shapes their lives.

It can be triggering for anyone who's been abused by a parent. It was heartbreaking seeing him go back to those memories and come to a lot of realizations about his mother, their family, and what they mean to him after he's grown up and got a life and family of his own.

The art style wasn't my favorite thing, it wasn't the type I would usually gravitate to in graphic memoirs, it's mainly suited fro action or superhero comics (which I knew after reading the book is what the author grew up to do, and that is an amazing success story), but the story was heart-wrenching and the writing style was amazing. I would recommend it if you can handle it.

I thank Netgalley and Archaia for the digital ARC.

A searing memoir that delves into identity, family relationships and poverty. Mike explores his childhood and reflects on the complicated people and events that unfold through out this memoir. We glimpse the hard choices his mother had to make due to poverty and the effect it had on her and her son. A great read for adult readers. Young adults could handle it but discussions about trauma, poverty and abuse would need to take place.

Powerful coming of age graphic novel. Growing up in poverty, being abused and not knowing were you fit in or where you belong. Series of unfortunate events.