Endsickness

by Sofia Alarcon (Artist)

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction

120 pages, Paperback

Published June 10, 2025

Reviews

[RIAH · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was really good! I'd pair it with the Monk and Robot series by Becky Chambers for a full existential reflection on life.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very timely graphic novel about the climate issues the world is currently facing. With how dreary everything seems to be in the world currently, this graphic novel was a refreshing funny breath of fresh air. I recommend it to fans of graphic novels or someone who's looking for a fun read about the current state of the world.

Thank you to Edelweiss and Conundrum Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Charlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not inciting enough to be inspiring, but i still enjoyed the musings on our ongoing apocalypse.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought provoking and philosophical, Endsickness captures the mix of malaise, confusion, uncertainty and fear that is 21st-century eco anxiety. My favourite of these short graphic stories, or reflections, is “Icarus,” about a conversation between two astronauts, and their commander, installing a solar shield to reduce the intensity of trapped heat on Earth. They reflect on time, progress, action, hindsight and ethics. They are in the place we fear, desperate times and measures. We are almost there. Still they live, and press on, and think communicate such complex, human thoughts. The grotesqueness and beauty of our species on display, yet hidden behind visors. Like all the stories in the book, the imagery is heavy with symbolism.

[Cheryl]

Reviewers who say it's fun or funny are saying something I don't understand at all. I find this even more dystopian than I expected. The pastel cover is, um ironic? A lie, like just about everything we're told irl? I dunno. Just weird. And, it's more like essays than short stories, fyi.

If I were learning this stuff for the first time I'd be even more prone to anxiety after reading it than before. But I already know that, yes, going shopping at Patagonia is not going to fix the wilderness, and affirmation statements don't address the context of one's life.

I already know that "the whole concept of self-sufficiency becomes bullshit once you realize you depend on other people every day. Nameless, unseen people grow your food; stock your grocery shelves; clean your garbage; sew your clothes...."

"Hindsight. Foresight. Doesn't matter. Time is an illusion.... It feels like history keeps repeating itself, like we're just inventing new ways to make the same mistakes." In the book, this is written in a Russian accent, because it's Vlad that speaks it. I omit that mess for clarity here.

As an avid reader of speculative fiction for half a century, I know I've read just about everything covered here, many times over for some of the themes. The only chapter I don't understand is the last, the one that might be supposed to give us hope?

Very quick read. Unless you want to stop and think about, maybe journal on, maybe discuss, points made in it.

[Brenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essentially the apocalypse in the year of our lord 2026 but make me chuckle. That was depressing af and entirely relatable. I loved every page. We're cooked y'all.

[Grace Stafford · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't think I have read a piece of climate fiction that more accurately depicts my own feelings than Sofia Alcaron's Endsickness. This graphic novel is simply beautiful and dwells less on specific catastrophic possibilities and more so on how we, the human race, are handling it. So very insightful and touching!
Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher for this eARC!

[Matt Graupman · Rating 4 out of 5]

On work days, my shifts typically last from 6:00AM to 6:00PM so, a few months ago, I started getting up early and going for walks to get a little exercise in before heading to the station. Sometimes I listen to music, sometimes I listen to an audiobook, and sometimes - not an infrequent amount of times, mind you - I have an existential crisis thinking about how fucked up the planet is now and how even more fucked up it's virtually guaranteed to be in the near future. I feel like Sofia Alarcon can probably relate. The short comics she's collected in "Endsickness" span a vast array of perspectives and styles but all of them deal with the eco-horrors humanity face - or are destined to face - after decades of denial and inaction; they are smart and silly and terrifying, sometimes in equal measure. Alarcon shows a lot of versatility in these pieces: sometimes her stuff reminded me of Anders Nilsen, sometimes Sam Alden, sometimes Lynda Barry, and sometimes Dash Shaw, but always with her own flair. Much in the same way that horror movies tend to proliferate during times of social upheaval, "Endsickness" turns anxiety over the imminent eco-apocalypse into art.

FAVORITES:
"Positive Thinking" - A young woman attempts to preserve her good mental attitude despite all evidence to the contrary
"Adaptation" - A brief history of the evolution of life as it marches towards what has proven to be the dumbest timeline
"Icarus" - Astronauts tasked with a last ditch effort to shield the planet from harmful UV rays debate the implications of their actions

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intelligent, heartfelt, and a sad reflection of the challenges of our times and how change for the better feels really hard.

In eight illustrated thematic comic vignettes where the tone ranges from meditative to depressive to sardonic, Sofia Alarcon indicts the evils of global capitalism as her characters stare into the void rent into the social compact by climate crisis, seismic economic inequality, biodiversity collapse, toxics in the environment, the epidemic of loneliness, and technoconsumerist malaise.

The stories are accessible for adults, and there is a call to action to be a conscious agent of positive change in whatever life choices we face in every moment. There is no overriding optimism, however, and no confidence in solutions, escape, or narrative conclusion. There is only faith in adaptation as a truism and a suggestion that underlying the ills of our age there may be some new order to be revealed with a broader or better perspective. The metaphor of the forgotten and discarded acorn that evaded the cache of a greedy squirrel which matures into a majestic and biophilic oak tree is the extent of the author's hope for humanity.

I gave this book a try when searching the library catalog for the term "hyperobjects" which I came upon after reading another marvelous novella by Rebecca Campbell.

[Dania · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could post pics that I took of this book here, but some really existential and philosophical questions were posed really well. Such as, how we are at the mercy of the universe (from the Adaptation chapter) and even when preparing for Doomsday depicted by a bearded man buying in bulk for his fortress... Just for the chapter to end with two people finding that fortress buried in the desert 🏜. Sofia Alarcon tackles these themes of our obsession with the dystopia, the end-of-the-world thoughts, encompassing this all into what Elizabeth Rush coined as "endsickness".

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Endsickness is a sort of collection of short stories about climate change, climate anxiety, our place in the universe, and our hopes for the future. Some of it is a sort of science fiction / climate fiction that made for engrossing stories. Others are more of a meditation on those feelings. The art is a great classic zine style and switches from full colour to black and white where appropriate. Overall, anyone looking for that feeling of mingling commiseration and hope that you might share with a friend In These Trying Times should give this one a read.

[Anemone V.L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed the space illustrations. more compelling than I had thought, I didn't expect to keep it afterwards but it is actually staying on my bookshelf. weird to read a book where I've already had all of those conversations before but its nice to see written down I guess.

[rndgmoat · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you suddenly feel waves of existential anxiety while going about your first world life that make you feel like the bottom is going to fall out but then also? You notice that all around you things grind on like nothing is happening so you wonder...am I crazy? This is the book for you.

[Stephanie Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

acho esto me gusto un monton y me apreto el corazon. una coleccion de cuentitos que trata mucho del tiempo, desplazamiento y el cambio climatico.

[Lisa]

Unfortunately I'm with the kinda 3 star consensus here - my favorite part of this collection was the title (and maybe some of the coloring in the book).

[Jorge Delgado-Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

four start. an extra because it is timely and relevant. five starts.

[Ed Oakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

No pulling punches here. Very thought provoking.

[Abrar Shahid · Rating 5 out of 5]

shout-out to DG ivey library for displaying this bangers of a book. I love hopeful futurism in literature and calling out bullshit and outdated western epistemology

[Marian Rolewicz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought provoking and entertaining

[Lindsay Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Matthew Archibald · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good book, though it made me feel a bit sad, since its main theme seemed to be how badly we have screwed up the Earth.