In her moving graphic memoir, Something, Not Nothing (Arsenal Pulp Press), Sarah Leavitt expresses the grief that followed her partner Donimo’s death. It’s not often that we are shown the immense nuances of grief, but Leavitt leads the reader through a powerful melding of images, colours and words. After years of suffering and pain due to disease and injury, Donimo chooses to receive medical assistance in dying, or MAiD (a process available in Canada). Friends and family help the women organize a beautiful creekside ritual (chosen by Donimo)—and then she dies. And then there is nothing. Or is there something? And this is the “something, not nothing” of the book’s title. The worst part of the death of a beloved partner is how to live without them. As Leavitt writes in her preface, “After her death I continued living, which surprised me.” And then you’re alive, but not quite, and they are dead, but also not quite. Now what? Now how? They are not here, of course. But are they somehow here? The book is sad, but it also brims with life. The images use handwriting, colour fields and drawings of flowers and animals (lots of animals, both real and imagined), plus the small objects that make up the narrative of lives lived together. Plus Donimo. Plus Sarah. For a book about death, it takes us to a place of life. That’s the heart of the memoir. I read Something, Not Nothing with tears in my eyes. And I will read it again. —Peggy Thompson