What It Is is an extraordinary book, both its look and content are anything but ordinary. This book looks like a scrapbook at a glance but once you start take a closer look at the pages, it reveals so much more. It’s part memoir, part writing guide, part poetry collection, and entirely its own thing. Lynda Barry has created something truly unique: a book that feels like walking through a deeply personal art museum, where every corner holds a beautiful and emotional surprise.

Each page bursts with collage-style illustrations, handwritten notes, and bursts of color. I often found myself leaning in, pausing, soaking in the brushstrokes and scribbled thoughts. Like standing in front of a painting inside an art museum, I didn’t want to miss a single detail. It’s something to read and experience at once. I wish there were more books like What It Is that give me this kind of experience.

Barry shares memories and insights with the honesty and depth of a poet. One part that lingered with me was her reflection on sixth grade, how she stopped doing ordinary things in front of others. Singing, for example. “We still sang,” she writes. “We just made sure we were alone when we did it.” That line captures something so tender and true about growing up, the way we start to hide the parts of ourselves that once came out so naturally.

I also loved her thoughts on writing by hand. There’s something about the physical act of it that feels different: more alive, more real.

What It Is is a book that’s hard to define but easy to feel. It’s messy in the most magical way. If you’ve ever wrestled with a creative block or longed to reconnect with your childlike curiosity, this book might just help you find your way back.

My Favorite Bits

• They can’t transform your actual situation, but they can transform your experience of it. We don’t create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay. I believe we have always done this, used images to stand and understand what otherwise would be intolerable.

• If playing isn’t happiness or fun, if it is something which may lead to those things or to something else entirely; not being able to play is misery.

• The happy ending is hardly important, though we may be glad it’s there. The real joy is knowing that if you felt the trouble in the story, your kingdom isn’t dead.

• Wherever there are people, you will find stories of monsters.

One night

I was lit up bright

And all of a sudden

Out went my light

Lynda Barry, What It Is

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Author: Lynda Barry

Publication date: 13 May 2008

Number of pages: 210 pages

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