Utterly immersive and deeply atmospheric, this YA graphic novel is part speculative fiction, party cautionary tale – a true one-of-a-kind project that recalls Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Never Let Me Go, and the work of Charlie Kaufman.

THE FAINT OF HEART
by Kerilynn Wilson
Greenwillow/HarperCollins, June 2023
(via Writers House)

It wasn’t even that long ago. The Scientist discovered that all sadness, anxiety, and anger would disappear when you remove your heart. And that’s all it took. Soon enough the Hospital had lines out the door.
June is an unexceptional teen in almost every way—she’s an average student, she lives at home with her mom, dad, and sister, she loves art. . . but June is the only one in town who still has her heart. Between June’s uncaring family and the blank stare of her former best friend, nothing hurts more than being surrounded by the heartless. Just when June is about to cave to the mounting pressure to remove her heart and stop feeling emotions altogether, she comes across a heart in a jar, left abandoned in an alley. Convincing her family that she went along with the procedure, June instead decides to find a way to put this heart into the person whose love she misses most: her sister Maya. But things get complicated when Max, a heartless boy from school, volunteers to join June on her secret quest. Max has a secret of his own. . . though he removed his heart, he’s starting to feel again. And it hurts.

Kerilynn Wilson is an author/illustrator with a love of the weird and wonderful, who lives in Portland, Oregon. The Faint of Heart is her debut graphic novel.