My Diary

In February 2002, Mio Matsumoto, a Japanese student at the Royal College of Art in London, finds what she thinks is an ulcer on her tongue. In July she decides that she ought to have it looked at. When her dentist recommends a biopsy, Mio, scared, decides to return to Japan. There she is diagnosed with cancer. This is Mio Matsumoto’s brilliantly drawn diary of the five months she spends in treatment. In it she writes about—and illustrates—her fears, her feelings, and her darkest moments; as well as brilliantly observed and often painfully funny scenes from hospital life—the boredom, the food, the enemas, the other patients, and the doctor she has a crush on. This is a marvelous book—funny, frightening, unsentimental, and utterly real.