Book Review: ‘You Belong Here’

The kind of book that makes you feel seventeen again—in both the best and worst ways.

May 27, 2025

What It’s About (In My Own Words)
You Belong Here by Sara Phoebe Miller and Morgan Beem
Essie Rosen’s life is kind of a mess. Her best friend ditched her for college, her brother’s in rehab, her long-time boyfriend might break up with her, and her dream of getting into NYU’s acting program? Who knows.
Senior year was supposed to be her final sprint toward something better. Instead, she’s stuck in Long Island, stuck in her feelings, and stuck doing the school play with Christopher Sun — who, for the record, is both charming and wildly inconvenient. Also, his brother is the drug dealer who got her brother hooked. So. There’s that.
What unfolds is a messy, heartfelt, very teen drama about grief, identity, complicated family stuff, and maybe—just maybe—finding yourself in the wreckage.

I have to say it: Morgan Beem deserves awards. Full stop. Her artwork is nothing short of phenomenal. Rendered entirely in moody, blue-tinted watercolours, the visual language of You Belong Here mirrors Essie’s emotional state—at times washed out and numb, at others claustrophobic with tension. Pages become dense with overlapping text and panels, conveying a visceral sense of anxiety; elsewhere, space opens up, allowing for quiet reflection or tentative connection. Despite the limited colour palette, the book feels lush and kinetic—proof of Beem’s extraordinary skill in evoking mood and movement through monochrome. It captures that watery, wobbly feeling of being seventeen and heartbroken and totally at sea.

You Belong Here is a raw, emotionally resonant coming-of-age graphic novel that captures the sharp edge of adolescence with striking honesty. Set during Essie Rosen’s senior year of high school, it offers an immersive portrait of a girl in free fall—navigating heartbreak, a fractured family, the aftermath of her brother’s addiction, and the sting of a failed dream.

And Miller writes with a keen understanding of how overwhelming teen emotions can be, when every disappointment feels permanent and every moment is saturated with meaning. Essie’s not always likeable, but she is achingly real: self-absorbed, impulsive, wounded, hopeful. The English class journal she keeps becomes an effective narrative device, offering us unfiltered access to her inner chaos in a way that feels raw rather than performative.

Is the drama dialled up to eleven? Sure. Are the characters a little too self-absorbed sometimes? Absolutely. Is the drama dialled up to eleven? Absolutely. Are the characters a little too wrapped up in themselves? Often. But that is adolescence. Everything’s turned up. Reading this now, over a decade older than Essie, I did find myself rolling my eyes at some of her more dramatic spirals—but then again, I once cried over a Hi5 status like it was a personal betrayal. So… fair enough.

This might not be a book for readers who want neat narratives and perfectly “relatable” protagonists. While the story includes a romantic subplot—with Christopher Sun, the younger brother of the man who got Essie’s brother hooked—it resists a tidy romantic resolution. This isn’t a love story, but a story about rebuilding identity when everything you thought you could count on fails you. It’s a breakup book, a theatre kid book, a grief book, a sibling book. Above all, it’s a portrait of how it feels to be seventeen and stuck in a life you didn’t choose.

Also, yes, the theatre-kid energy is immaculate. If you've ever walked into a black box and felt like you belonged more there than at your own dinner table, this one’s definitely for you.

MOM BRAIN FILTER

Reading this as a mom had me toggling between “You poor baby” and “You’re being dramatic, but also please drink some water and take a nap.” Teenage heartbreak hits hard, especially when it’s layered over real trauma. Essie’s relationship with her mom is one of the most painful (and well-drawn) parts of the book. There’s love there, but it’s tangled in disappointment, silence, and all the stuff they don’t say. Reading it, I kept wondering how I can raise a daughter who feels safe telling me the hard things, not just when she’s five, but when she’s seventeen and everything is too much and her dreams aren’t working out the way she hoped. Because what this book understands is that growing up is not just about who you want to be — it’s about what you do when your first plan falls apart.

READ IF YOU:

Love messy, honest YA with emotional depth and high school drama
Ever had to rethink your whole future after one very bad day
Fell for a boy who wasn’t “right” on paper but made you feel seen anyway
Grew up in a house where love and pain sat at the same dinner table

SKIP IF YOU:

Can’t do stories about addiction or fractured families right now
Need your main characters to make only good, sensible decisions (this is YA, not a financial planning seminar)
Don’t enjoy theatre-kid energy, moody romance, or teens being teens

⭐ RULING

You Belong Here is full of raw feelings, real mistakes, and that almost painful longing to get out of the place you came from. It’s about the gap between who you are and who you thought you’d be — and the scary, brave work of figuring it out anyway.

It’s a love letter to messiness. A spotlight on the kids who stay behind. And a reminder that “belonging” isn’t a destination — it’s a feeling you carry with you, or create when no one hands it to you.

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YOUR TURN

There’s a page toward the end that got me choked up — not because it was big or dramatic, but because it was quiet. Just a moment of two people trying, despite it all, to connect. I think that’s the emotional core of this book: the courage to try, even when everything feels like a failure.

Now I’m curious:

Have you ever had a dream crash and burn, and found something better on the other side?
Who was your unexpected lifeline during a hard time?
Did high school feel like a place you belonged, or one you had to survive?
And for the theatre nerds among us: what’s your favourite play, and did it ever change the way you saw yourself?

👇 Spill the tea.