Wow. I absolutely tore through this book. I just couldn’t put it down.

As a 23 year old who had exactly that kind of intense friendship that Emilia and C had at school, and whose best friend has now moved to another country, so much of this really hit home for me. I was searching for myself in Emilia’s words, even as I know I didn’t want to find myself there. I also tore the nail off my middle finger nervously nibbling away.

This book was so beautiful and such a gorgeous tribute to so many things, not only Charlotte’s life. It’s a homage to female friendship, changing relationships, the distance mental health puts between you and the closeness it brings. It would be wrong to say I enjoyed this book, but it touched me deeply. And it made me remember how special those teenagehood friendships were, how powerful and formative and enduring. A gorgeous novel in memory of the kind of mate everyone needs.

This comic is about the recollection of the author's life in retrospect to her best friend's death. We follow Emilia through her school years and her early adult life. She’s accompanied by her best friend Charlotte who dies later on. It’s a story about growing up and trauma. While reading this I could really understand how Emilia felt growing up during the late 90s-early 2000s. The story was heartbreaking and the author did a good job to show how trauma and guilt can affect you. I liked the way this opened the question to how you can help a struggling friend, especially in the background of not living close and having your own problems and daily life to deal with. Emilia and her friends honouring Charlotte's life after her death was very emotional and it nicely illustrated how it feels to slowly move on and learn to live with the pain of losing a loved one.
The ending was very sudden when the author decided to not continue writing/ drawing the comic and I did not enjoy the art style.
Despite that I enjoyed it very much and it provided a lot to think about.

The beautiful and heartbreaking story of a friendship that was cut short by a battle with mental illness.

This book is so full of love, it is impossible not to care about the characters.
It is short and sweet and honest, and sad, but it isn't heavy; it's the celebration of a person's life and the relationship the author had with them.

An emotional and lovely read.


Thank you NetGalley and IDW Publishing for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me a copy of this book in exchange with honest review.

This book tells a journey about a friend who lost a friend, how she later dealt with grief and emptiness and after her friend passed away, it's a book about how her friendship bloomed beautifully and withered tragically because of adulting. It's a sad tragedy about realizing your friend is always there for you to pick up your pieces and hold them gently but you are never actually there because works are more demanding (you want to be there, tho). It's about regret, it's a million 'what-ifs' that haunt you, it's the 'I should have done more' kind of feeling too. Around the end of this book, there's a little hidden message spoken by Emi's husband, about how you should cherish the people that you call friends and spend time with them. Without looking at how actually I am not fond of the art style, it's a beautiful book.

**Thank you to NetGalley and IDW Publishing for this ARC in exchange for an honest review**

Emilia and Charlotte had the kind of friendship I wish I had with someone. They spent a lot of time together up until they started college. There were actually some panels that made me think that maybe Charlotte wanted to be more than friends with Emilia (you'll know them when you see them). During college, Charlotte got some new friends and Emilia started to feel kind of jealous and wondered if Charlotte might like them better. I think this is a natural response to a big change in a friendship. She was reassured that she was just as important, though.

When their second year of college started, Charlotte began to have problems with her mental health from which she would never recover. She overdosed multiple times, and one day she decided to jump off of the parking structure of the hospital she was at. I agree with Gareth that this definitely shouldn't have happened, as the point of being in a mental health ward is to be monitored because you are a danger to yourself. As with a lot of people when a friend or family member takes their life, Emilia feels some guilt. What could she have done differently? How could she have been a better friend? She said she felt powerless. The rest of the book is about how she deals with this grief and guilt.

The illustrations in this book are not detailed and colorful, so it's something you would read for the written story over the art.

Poignant story about mental illness and suicide. Provoked many emotions but for a graphic novel I found the illustrations a bit lacking. Overall a good read.

This is a story about loss, struggling with mental health and about suicide. But it’s also a story about friendship, healing and moving on. Charlotte was the author’s best friend who passed away back in 2018, and this is the story of their friendship, Charlotte’s death and Emilia’s life after Charlotte.

I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a honest review and hoowee, this was a heavy one.

Before I move on to the sadder parts, I just want to mention how sweet the beginning of their friendship is. A lot of times I feel like deep emotional connections in stories are reserved for romantic relationships, like people have forgotten how exciting it can be to make a new friend, to feel understood and seen by another person, to look at someone and think “yes, we are meant to be” in a entirely platonic way. You can be in love with someone without loving them romantically. Your soulmate can be your best friend. That’s the beauty of human connection. And that’s Emilia and Charlotte. Two girls who felt misunderstood and displaced everywhere they went except for when they were together.

And friendships evolve, people move away and life gets harder. You can’t spend your days playing with your friends like when you were kids, but I was happy to see that they kept in touch the whole time and made an effort to see each other even when they were living in different countries.

I knew going in that this would be a difficult subject for me, but as the author explains in the beginning, this is not a comic about depression and suicide, it’s a comic about friendship, so it’s not as heavy as it could be. But it’s authentic. It’s very genuine in its portrayal of loss and grief, which means it was impossible not to tear up. Emilia’s anger, her despair and how helpless you feel when you lose someone. All of it was so sincere. “If we can’t or won’t save each other… What’s the point?!” Emilia wonders i the middle of the night. “It’s so weird being here and trying to care about stuff that is ultimately pointless.” She thinks when she goes back to work. Grief consumes you and makes you question everything. “I thought grief would put things into perspective, but instead, everything seems difficult and terrifying.” I feel like the author managed to put down in words a lot of things I’ve felt but never managed to articulate.

One scene that really hit me was when Emilia dreams about Charlotte. “She doesn’t know she’s dead.” That line broke my heart. There’s nothing sadder than waking up from a dream where the person you miss wasn’t really gone.

“…like she’s from an earlier time. I hate that feeling.” This line made me think of how weird it is to think about people who have died pre-covid. To look back and think, oh yeah, this person is from the “before” times. This also happens to your life, and that’s more what the author was talking about, there is a before and an after a loss, but I hadn’t though of how the pandemic also affects this.

I thought the way they honored Charlotte was really beautiful. I hope when I go, people gather around and tell stories about me that made them laugh. I want them to remember me with a smile on their faces.

And this story raises a lot of questions this subject always raises for me. How much influence do you really have over someone else’s happiness? Can you ever really save someone? How much can it come from you, and how much does it have to come from them?

Anyway, I think this is a really beautiful story, it’s heartbreaking, especially when you remember it’s based on a true story, and I think it was told with a lot of respect.

The only thing I didn’t enjoy as much was the art. I’ve never been someone that thinks art needs to be perfect or realistic to be considered art, but there were a couple of panels that completely pulled me out of the story. Namely when Emilia is saying something serious/sad and her eyes are completely exotropic, making it seem like she’s pulling a funny face. I don’t think it would be hard to go over it in the end and correct all these little mistakes.

And lastly, the title is incredible. That was what made me want to pick this up in the first place and I think it really works.

Many thanks to IDW Publishing for the ARC!

This was such an interesting view of McKenzie's friendship and grief process following the death of her friend Charlotte. The way that the loss is built into the development of their friendship and you watch McKenzie try to process the changes she saw and didn't see coming. I loved how it speaks to the importance and value of female friends as well. The small moment of holding hands and realizing it doesn't have to be a romantic thing, to discussing why vacations are more fun with friends, and eventually processing C's death and the depth that deals with.

I did want to like it a little bit more though. I felt like the illustrations were really lacking. Being someone who really likes graphic novels and memoirs, I felt like I didn't get a sense of the people in this story as the art was a bit more basic than I'm used to in graphic memoirs. You could see the differences, but no one really stood out. The muted colors also added to the dullness I felt. This could have been an active choice as it's a heavy topic and that could be how McKenzie felt it would be best created, but it took away from the impact in my opinion.

That being said, I felt McKenzie did a great job at showcasing how impactful a loss can be, how hard mental health and suicide is to understand, and how complicated feelings can be when processing happy memories with a sad reality. If anyone is struggling after the loss of a friend, definitely a good book to turn to, but otherwise I wouldn't necessarily recommend or grab for this read.

I’m of similar age to Emi and Charlotte so some of the early stories when they’re in school are familiar.

This is raw peek into the guilt, anger, and grief of losing a loved one to suicide.

I really loved this graphic memoir. It gave such honor to the author's friend Charlotte who died by suicide. It was done with grace and compassion. It wasn't too graphic but was so open and honest about what it is like to lose someone in that way. Beautiful black and white comics.

But You Have Friends by Emilia McKenzie is a beautiful tribute to a friendship that would leave her forever changed.

Emilia and Charlotte bonded early in their high school days, and built a friendship that sustained them through the ups and downs of the next twenty years. Though they separated to pursue their own ambitions, the close bond of friendship always remained. Charlotte struggled with depression and ended her own life in 2018, leaving Emilia grieving, struggling to understand, and wondering if she could have done more to help her friend.

This is a deeply personal account of friendship, mental health, depression, and a love that continues to endure. Recommended.

Many thanks to IDW Publishing for an ARC.