A graphic memoir of one woman’s utterly relatable and life-affirming anxiety journey.
GIVE ME SPACE BUT DON’T GO FAR
by Haley Weaver
Avery, Spring/Summer 2023
(via Neon Literary)
Through eleven illustrated essays, GIVE ME SPACE BUT DON’T GO FAR encourages readers to understand anxiety as a part of them, a neutral thing as unavoidable and intrinsic as any other part of their body. Anxiety isn’t an obstacle, it’s a roommate. Or in Haley Weaver’s case, her anxiety is represented by a wide-eyed tangle of string, Weaver reveals over the course of the book that it isn’t an enemy to defeat or an obstacle to overcome. Anxiety just is, and it’s never going away, but if we care for it with tender curiosity and attention, it has many gifts to offer. With care, practice, and the friendship of some really great coping mechanisms, you can learn how to live with your anxiety roommate in a mutually respectful, affectionate, even meaningful way.
GIVE ME SPACE BUT DON’T GO FAR is more than just a memoir; it’s a valentine to selfacceptance and forgiveness.
Haley Weaver illustrates and shares webcomics about anxiety + mental health, relationships, and selfhood on her Instagram account @HaleyDrewThis. Her illustrations have been featured on other notable accounts and websites, including Bustle, Betches, New York Magazine, and Bored Panda. She has a knack for transforming universal (and sometimes overwhelming) feelings into digestible, relatable illustrations. Since sharing her first doodle to Instagram in 2017, Haley has accrued a fan base of almost 300,000 followers on Instagram.

A year into her dream job at a cutthroat Silicon Valley start-up, Cassie finds herself trapped in a corporate nightmare. Between the long hours, toxic bosses, and unethical projects, she also struggles to reconcile the glittering promise of a city where obscene wealth lives alongside abject poverty and suffering. Ivy League grads complain about the snack selection from a conference room with a view of houseless people bathing in the bay. Start-up burnouts leap into the paths of commuter trains, and men literally set themselves on fire in the streets.
When the cops arrive, only a few things are clear:
When Andrew stumbles upon Jamie’s house, he’s injured, starved, and has nothing left to lose. A deadly pathogen has killed off most of the world’s population, including everyone both boys have ever loved. And if this new world has taught them anything, it’s to be scared of what other desperate people will do . . . so why does it seem so easy for them to trust each other? 
Lola Barnes’ summer is not off to the best start. Fresh off a scandal that tanked her social status, Lola has somehow managed to also alienate her twin sister, lose the friends she thought she had, and put a… fiery end to the first party of the summer. (The boat was barely on fire, for the record—and all the partygoers were just fine.) Lola is given an ultimatum: jail time, or spending the summer with the nonprofit Hike Like a Girl. Everyone seems to expect Lola to fail. But even as Lola encounters bugs, blisters, and bears (oh my!), she finds something greater that she’s been missing all along: unexpected friends, a sweet romance, strength she didn’t know she had—and herself, Lola, at last.
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