Alison is Posy Simmonds meets Edward Bawden - and really, what higher praise could there be?' Observer This book is a testament to the right to choose your own life' Jessica Andrews, author of Saltwater As the thrill of bohemian romance leads inevitably to disappointment, Alison begins to find her own path - through art, friendship and love. And I liked the way the story was told (mix of paragraphs, comics, letters, picture rows), that made it a really diverse an immersive reading experience.

I really don’t want to give anything else away, but let’s just say that Alison is a heartbreaking, emotionally charged, but ultimately uplifting work of art. Yes, a work of art, I loved the artwork in Alison, Lizzy Stewart’s way of using mixed media in the form of the graphic novel ( some written, some drawn ) works so well. It’s a gloriously gorgeous piece of work, and the first I have read of Lizzy Stewart, but it won’t be the last. A genius graphic novel (but lots of words) about a young woman from Dorset who leaves her life to be with a much older famous artist in London. It's also brilliant on relationships, creativity and friendship (and the art world) -- India Knight Alison discovers a talent for painting at Kerr’s class and begins sitting for him. Within months, she has left her husband for Kerr and Dorset for London. Here, the great man critiques her portraits and takes her to smug parties where she feels like the “most misplaced person” in the room. But, slowly, she finds her own friends and haunts. She buys oil paints, canvas and tinned food with her meagre earnings and explores the city, “screeching with laughter on the bus after a po-faced gallery opening” with her sculptor friend Tessa, while her work grows stronger and stronger. The book’s skewering of the art establishment is often very funny, but there’s fury here tooI loved it, so well put together. I loved the art style as well as the subtly this book uses to cover some really big subjects. For me Alison had everything - if you think that cover is beautiful just wait until you open it up and see the amazing drawings inside. I really liked the way the author added so many different styles, colours and even interspersed the art with letters, it was visually fabulous. Alison is newly married, barely twenty and struggling to find her place in the world. A chance encounter with an older artist upturns her life and she forsakes convention and her working-class Dorset roots for the thrumming art scene of London in the late seventies. Lizzy Stewart’s new graphic novel charts the adult life of Alison as she slowly learns her own value, finds her own tribe, and falls into a wholly unexpected profession as a painter. Alison is an everywoman who somehow beats the odds to escape a mundane existence, even as she continually questions her right to do so and grapples with her mixed feelings about the role her mentor/predator played in her career path. Stewart paints a richly defined portrait of this most unexpected heroine across multiple decades, revealing the highs and lows that hone an average, listless girl into an acclaimed artist with deep personal relationships.

A quietly powerful book, and Stewart's well chosen and often witty dialogue goes straight to the heart. Her artwork is filmic and beautiful -- Isabel Greenberg, author of Glass Town With its focus on friendship and the passing of time, Alison often recalls Stewart’s graphic short story collection It’s Not What You Thought It Would Be. While its predecessor was enjoyable but uneven, here she sustains the drama, and the parade of small things – baths and bars, studios and shopfronts, spiralling arguments and moments of joy – builds into something rather special. Before you know it, half Alison’s life has rushed by, and she is the established artist feeling bemused and invigorated by the next generation – and able to dispense more balanced advice than the old men who preceded her. A delicious portrait of 80s and 90s London and a more universal tale of a working-class young woman making a life in a world that has not been designed for the likes of her. For all its effortlessness [...] Alison ends up carrying a great emotional heft. It's a lovely book, and I cried at the end.' Guardian

A captivating new graphic novel that could have been dreamt up by Edna O'Brien and Judith Kerr of The Tiger Who Came To Tea fame, had they ever collaborated. * The Gloss Ireland * First of all: The pictures were stunning and really brought the atmosphere of the story to live and the prose were so delicately beautiful.