Reviewed by Elizabeth Austin

In All the things is High quality, I’ll Simply Work Tougher: Confessions of a Former Badass (Road Noise Books, 2025), Cara Gormally delivers a quietly radical graphic memoir that explores how trauma embeds itself within the physique, mutates into perfectionism, and hides beneath the masks of excessive achievement.

Rendered in clear black-and-white panels sometimes accented with blue, Gormally’s debut traces the aftermath of assault and the toll of functioning inside programs — household, academia — that reward silence and punish vulnerability.

Structured in ten loosely themed chapters, the memoir avoids a linear narrative arc in favor of a fragmented, non chronological method that mimics the method of trauma restoration itself. Flashbacks floor unexpectedly, interwoven with scenes of educational life, remedy classes, and unusual moments made instantly overwhelming. Early within the e-book, a haunting sequence reveals Gormally reliving a previous traumatic occasion —  clean panels, floating speech bubbles, and the road: “I simply must push through.” It’s a hanging illustration of how trauma carves absence into presence.

Quite than a narrative of conquer adversity, it is a memoir of truth-telling and of slowly studying to really feel what’s lengthy been buried. Via Eye Motion Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) remedy, launched by a therapist they search out, Gormally begins the painful work of revisiting long-suppressed reminiscences. In a single scene, Gormally flashes again to being frozen throughout an assault, unable to scream or struggle again. The juxtaposition of medical stillness with emotional chaos is highly effective, and deeply acquainted to anybody who’s tried to excavate trauma whereas nonetheless exhibiting up for work, household, or each day life.

A biology professor by coaching, Gormally integrates analysis on tonic immobility, emotional invalidation, and the somatic results of trauma with out disrupting the narrative’s intimacy. These scientific references present context and vocabulary for experiences many readers could instinctively perceive however have by no means formally named. For me, this interaction of educational data and lived expertise deepens the e-book’s affect.

The illustrations replicate the memoir’s cautious stability of restraint and emotional honesty. Sparse and expressive, Gormally’s drawings invite readers into the discomfort fairly than shielding them from it. A number of the most affecting moments are the quietest. One motif recurs all through: Gormally’s face seems calm whereas their palms claw on the edges of the panel or their physique curls into itself. These decisions make seen the hidden labor of showing “superb.”

The memoir additionally zooms in on the price of over-functioning. Gormally’s burnout is depicted via scenes of frantic work punctuated by bodily collapse, the mantra “I’ve to maintain going or I’ll disintegrate” looping via the panels. As somebody who’s lengthy equated value with output, I discovered these pages uncomfortably acquainted. I, too, have minimized my exhaustion, framed my ache as non permanent or unearned, and pushed via out of concern that stopping would imply unraveling. Studying these sections of the e-book nudged me towards a reluctant recognition: in these moments, I wasn’t simply drained — I used to be skilled to disregard myself.

One other standout second comes when Gormally displays on how society rewards “energy” whereas ignoring the associated fee. “You’re so robust,” individuals say, even because the individual they’re speaking to is barely holding it collectively. The illustrations are virtually clinically indifferent, which makes them hit tougher. That delicate detachment mirrors the way in which trauma survivors usually recount ache — factually, with out embellishment — as a result of it’s the one strategy to say it out loud.

In an important transfer, Gormally resists providing decision. They don’t declare to be healed, solely therapeutic. Within the last chapter, they lie nonetheless in mattress and write, “I can breathe.” The panels progress via the entire small however vital methods Gormally’s processing of their trauma has improved their high quality of life. It’s not a tidy conclusion, nevertheless it feels trustworthy. The work of therapeutic, they recommend, is just not about changing into another person. It’s about being with your self as you might be.

All the things is High quality, I’ll Simply Work Tougher takes a compassionate, clear-eyed take a look at what it means to stay in a physique formed by trauma. Gormally’s story doesn’t simply replicate one expertise; it speaks to anybody who’s been praised for his or her resilience whereas quietly falling aside.

For me, this memoir didn’t provide a decision, nevertheless it did provide recognition. It holds house for complexity, and it reminds readers gently however firmly that therapeutic doesn’t imply returning to who you have been. It means studying, typically for the primary time, methods to be with who you might be.