Everything in Color: A Love Story

by Stephanie Stalvey

Interrogating her own upbringing in an evangelical community, Stephanie Stalvey weaves a story of faith, alienation, romance and acceptance, in this beautifully painted graphic memoir. Perfect for fans of Blankets by Craig Thompson and Fun Home by Alison Bechdel.

"Everything was either black or white. Pure or impure."

Stephanie grew up in an evangelical community where sin was inescapable, her body was a temptation, and desire was something to be feared. She was convinced that her thoughts couldn't be trusted, therefore obedience was paramount. She was only safe if she believed the "right things" about God.

But as she built a life of her own, fell in love with James, and became a mother, the complexities of the human experience became impossible to ignore. Was God truly so exacting and judgmental? Could faith exist without shame? Could love be both passionate and pure? Her connection to James- honest, aching, and sensual- became a safe place for her worldview to expand and grow.

Through striking prose and beautiful mixed-media illustrations, Stalvey takes us on an emotional journey of faith, romance, motherhood, and loss. With tenderness and honesty, she unravels the fear and guilt woven into her past, reclaims her sense of self, and shows us how to embrace a love that is healing, transformative, and wholly one's own.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Memoir, Nonfiction, Comics, Romance, Religion, Spirituality

528 pages, Hardcover

Published April 28, 2026

Reviews

[Caitlin Waits · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely gorgeous art style! In an autobiographical graphic novel, Stephanie Stalvey explores her black-and-white fundamentalist upbringing and contrasts it with a new, richer understanding of the world. She reflects on the past with kindness, noting the good intentions and love of those around her even as she acknowledges the pain and wounds of the system in which she grew up. She moves back and forth between her black-and-white memories and colorful scenes of her family today, musing on a mother's love and the joy of children and childhood, morphing into a discussion on love, religion, and hope. This book broke me, in the best way possible. Stalvey could have been illustrating scenes from my life throughout this text, and I found her musings and illustrations wonderfully freeing, imaging a way forward based on love and security. This book really resonated with me, particularly reflecting on the messaging being pushed in religious books and in youth groups during the early 2000s, as well as how motherhood recolors ones perception of the world.

[Steff Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephanie Stalvey’s Everything in Color: A Love Story is an incredibly brave and vulnerable sort of graphic memoir. It’s the sort of story that sends me sort of reeling through a ton of different and one that only further builds upon a frustration I have with the world, particularly that of the manipulation for control filled variety. The author’s journey with what I consider to be some of the most widespread forms of genuine—and perhaps unintentional—abuses that exist within the world’s religions.

I certainly appreciate Stalvey’s raw expression of her experiences, the difficulties that they have placed on her life, particularly in how she has viewed herself throughout her childhood and young adult life. It’s truly amazing to watch the resilience a person can have and how they use that to build a more positive life not only for themselves, but for everyone around them.

Stalvey’s artwork is beautiful, though I would advise to read this book outside of work since a few of the pages are a little more private in nature—primarily centered around the experiences of motherhood. I really enjoyed having the opportunity to read about her experiences and I hope her journey was cathartic for her.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Sarah Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A highly anticipated read that, if I'm being honest, was always going to earn 5 stars for the gorgeous art alone! So many beautiful pages, and how humbling knowing they were drawn and painted by hand. But beyond that, Stalvey accomplishes something truly impressive: her memoir about the pain of high-control religion and the healing of finding safety in her own body and relationships navigates the anger and the grief of this experience without bitterness. I think so many reckoning with black and white thinking or purity culture fall into similar patterns at opposite extremes, applying the same rigidity and judgement they are trying to escape to those who oppose their new perspectives. Stalvey has managed so much gentleness for her former self and beliefs, which may not be what everyone needs but is so refreshing for those of us who still feel tenderness around our early religious experiences. Because of this, she's able to show that despite the ways she has changed, she hasn't had to sever herself: by staying tender towards her own pain in the past, she has found a continuity and integration that I truly admire.

Stalvey conveys much of this integration by juxtaposing more recent scenes against flashbacks, highlighting how the hard-earned freedom she's found as an adult and especially a parent now informs her recollections of her distressed youth. I did find myself wondering about the time and the work in between; although I think seeing how far she's come is a source of hope I also think that aching space in between can be lonely and so would have liked to see a little more of her navigating that. As it is though, the book is around 500 pages and shares some very raw personal moments so I can't really be disappointed!

While the trust and affection that grows between Stephanie and James over the course of the memoir is so special and beautiful, I personally interpret the subtitle "a love story" as a reference to Stephanie's journey to loving herself: part of what makes James so good for her is his ability to provide patient support as she unravels her inner shame and fear to discover her own belovedness.

I related to so much of this book and was comforted and inspired by the places it goes a bit beyond my progress. Highly recommend to those who struggle personally with the aftermath of purity culture, or for those who want to better understand a loved one in that struggle.

[Lizzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not a big graphic novel person, but this book was everything I was hoping it would be — and more. The artwork was gorgeous, and Stephanie's story was so captivating and poignant. A really fresh and vulnerable take on the faith deconstruction memoir, and one I found deeply relatable. Will definitely be returning to it often.

[Danielle Stoebe · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5 ⭐️

[Adri Holt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stephanie grew up in an evangelical household. She was brought up to believe in eternal Hellfire. Throughout her childhood she was led to believe that she was a sinner, that everything she did would be judged by God. She struggles to find the balance between her upbringing and the woman she’s growing into. As someone who went to church and bible studies consistently, her break from the church and the people she thought would love her unconditionally, was an incredibly difficult decision. This was a fantastic, heart-wrenching retelling of what Stephanie had to go through and still battles against.

As someone who also grew up in an evangelical household and has left that religion, this one really hit home. I cannot express how much it is worth the read. It will be immediately purchased upon release for my best friend.

#ThxNetGalley #StephanieStalvey #EverythinginColor

Merged review:

Stephanie grew up in an evangelical household. She was brought up to believe in eternal Hellfire. Throughout her childhood she was led to believe that she was a sinner, that everything she did would be judged by God. She struggles to find the balance between her upbringing and the woman she’s growing into. As someone who went to church and bible studies consistently, her break from the church and the people she thought would love her unconditionally, was an incredibly difficult decision. This was a fantastic, heart-wrenching retelling of what Stephanie had to go through and still battles against.

As someone who also grew up in an evangelical household and has left that religion, this one really hit home. I cannot express how much it is worth the read. It will be immediately purchased upon release for my best friend.

#ThxNetGalley #StephanieStalvey #EverythinginColor

[Gabrielle Stoller · Rating 3 out of 5]

thank you Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

This book is a very complex one for me to write a review on... And that's because of my own personal life being wrapped. So tightly into this same narrative.

Indeed, so many of the illustrations that featured moments of growing up in the church. Indeed I felt like i was reliving my past. Donut Man, asking Jesus into my heart numerous times because you didn't know if it worked the first time, purity culture.......it's all elements that have impacted my own Faith journey and where I am today.

That's where my struggle is. But this book I was struggling to reconcile my own" deconstruction" or rather my disentangling.. I'm wondering where the author truly stood. I struggled with that. Have they walked away from God entirely? Have they embraced more of a secular mindset? Where are they exactly? I do hate how the church has hurt so many people and how it has influenced so many lives.

What stinks is how human men have taken scripture and twisted it for their own ends. That is where so many of these problems lie. I know this book will resonate with many, especially those who have walked away from Christ in the church. For those of us who have remained, such as myself...it's not so easy of an answer

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

The thing about the purity culture is that it is usually used on the girls. They must remain pure until marriage. The boys, well, in theory they are told the same, but wink wink, nudge nudge.


Stephanie calls herself a church kid. She is reaised to think the church is always right, and that she has to please god, above all things. And she remains pure as the driven snow, to the point that she breaks out in a rash if she even thinks about going to far.


And then she meets the young man that she falls in love with, and she has problems, because she isn’t supposed to lust, and yet she is.


I love the self-reflect on this book, as the author talks about her upbringing, and how she feels now that she is married and has a child. On one hand, she wants to bring the child to church, and have that community, but on the other hand, she hates the hypocriticalness of it all, and the shame put on young children for being themselves.


It is amazing that she grew up and was able to reflect enough and break free enough to see the two sides of the religion she grew up in.


Good look at how religion can strangle one, as it tries to embrace at the same time. Well written story. My heart aches for her as she struggled with her love of her boyfriend, and knowing she wasn't supposed to go even as far as kissing with him.


Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review. This book is coming out on the 28th of April 2026.

[Sam Avery · Rating 5 out of 5]

First book I’ve ever pre ordered as far as I remember. I saw her comics online and they shocked me with how closely they spoke to my life and thoughts. In the journey of deconstruction I know there are others, but it’s so cool to let their voices be louder than the criticism for a bit.
I cried so many separate times, starting like 50 pages in (James Dobson got me). I also had to put the book down several times because of some of the depressingly and infuriatingly real anecdotes. Some people really do live and talk like that youth pastor. The Bible studies, the shame, the conditions on your questions. Nothing you do is enough, and when people look back they rewrite your life as rebellion. There’s a lot of pain wrapped up in this book, but I also knew there’d be joy, and I felt encouraged to keep reading. It can be so hard to find joy not tainted by an oppressive embodied guilt and dread. Stephanie has the courage to let herself breathe in a new perspective. God is here with her, and doesn’t it sound crazy that she ever thought otherwise?
Anyway, love and recommend this book with the caveat that some people would totally hate it lol.

[Brianna Kinley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything isn’t always black and white and the Fitbit depicted it perfectly. The story flowed beautifully and the illustrations were all stunning throughout. I loved the back and forth timelines, it helped piece everything together flawlessly.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

[Katie Blum · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you grew up in purity culture, prime 90s evangelical Christianity, and ended up outgrowing that mold… this may just be the most relatable, soul-healing, beautiful read of your life.

[Colin Skinner · Rating 5 out of 5]

So I read this in a day, because I couldn’t put it down! If you’ve experienced high control religion like much of American evangelicalism, you’ll deeply relate to this story. I felt seen and spoken for! The use of black and white to convey the stuffy, binary thinking of fundamentalism vs color for the openness and complexity/beauty of critical thinking fits the pages perfectly and works so well for a graphic novel.

Truly one of the best autobiographical graphic novels I’ve ever read.

[Alexa Blart, Library Cop · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and 23rd Street for providing an ARC of this title. All opinions are my own.

An absolutely marvelous graphic novel debut--although I feel that I'm cheating a little by calling it that, because I've been following Stephanie Stalvey on Instagram for some time! Her artwork is stunning, emotional, and evocative, but what drew me to her in the first place was her rising spot in the ranks of the IG exvangelicals--people raised in high-control, punitive forms of Christianity who now share with the world their vision of a God removed from the dogma espoused by his power-hungry followers. Stalvey's own journey--from a child of deeply felt faith, to a young adult beginning to question her church's misogyny, purity culture, power and control, to a college student meeting the gentle seminarian who would eventually become her husband--is beautiful and heartbreaking, as marriage and motherhood force her to confront that what she knows of love is incompatible with the harshness religion she grew up in. Highly, highly recommend to anyone interested in deconstruction, personal memoir, and graphic nonfiction.

[Demetri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who Gets to Name the Body
Reading “Everything in Color” as a memoir of faith, fear, desire, and the long struggle to reclaim the right to interpret a life
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | March 29th, 2026

In “Everything in Color,” evangelicalism is less a theology than a fight over who gets to authorize the body’s meaning. Stephanie Stalvey’s graphic memoir begins inside a world that wants naming rights over everything that counts: what a woman’s body means, what desire means, what goodness may lawfully resemble, what a child owes on entry, what love may call itself if it hopes to pass inspection. The book’s real quarrel is not whether Stephanie leaves that world. Memoir has already worn the carpet thin there. The quarrel is that she slowly wrests back the right to read her own life. First through art. Then through erotic trust. Then through motherhood. And finally through the bruising discovery that the body may know certain truths before theology agrees to hear them.

That gives “Everything in Color” more bite than its subtitle behaves. This is not merely a memoir of church childhood, or purity culture, or first serious love, though it is all three. It is a memoir about reclaiming the right to set the terms. Stalvey grows up in evangelical Christianity where black and white are not colors but a moral ledger book: pure or impure, saved or lost, flesh or spirit, heaven or hell. Chapel lessons tell children that they deserve eternal punishment and should count themselves lucky someone else took the punishment for them. Corporal discipline is hallowed as virtue. Puberty arrives as if the body has turned state’s witness. Beauty becomes risk. The body becomes both accused party and snitch.

Stalvey is too fair-minded, and too self-aware, to make that world cheap. One of the book’s shrewder moves is to grant warmth where warmth existed: music in the house, tenderness in the family, the upholstered comforts of church life, the real density of communal belonging. Without that, the critique would come much too easily. She takes the harder route. A sincere world can still be a warping one. Love can arrive so tightly stitched to fear that disentangling them later feels less like liberation than like setting a bone.

In outline, the plot behaves itself. The real disorder is elsewhere. A girl raised in evangelical certainty becomes an artist with an appetite for disobedient seeing and a body she has been trained to mistrust. She falls in love with James, a shy seminarian whose faith is gentler and less punitive than the institutions around him. Their relationship develops under the fluorescent supervision of Bible studies, modesty talk, “appearance of evil” anxieties, and the amateur vice squad of Christian peer culture. Then motherhood breaks the book open. Pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, postpartum anxiety, miscarriage, and the simple unbearable fact of loving a child do what no debate can do: they make punitive theology feel not merely wrong but indecent. The story widens from private shame to institutional control, then turns toward a harder project: rebuilding the sacred around care, grief, bodily life, and relation.

But plot is not what keeps this memoir alive. What does is the way one experience keeps prying another open. Motherhood rereads childhood. Desire rereads doctrine. Grief rereads purity. The present keeps reaching back and changing the light on the past. That is the motor under the floorboards.

The book is strongest where it understands belief as body memory. Plenty of memoirs about religion can quote doctrine or narrate crisis. Stalvey is far more exact about what doctrine becomes once it leaves the sermon and enters the bloodstream. It blushes. It nauseates. It produces panic during intimacy, vigilance during motherhood, nightmares of falling forever in the dark. By the time Stephanie has stopped believing certain things, her body has not. Years after disbelief begins, it still behaves as if hell were weather and disobedience a physical hazard. The thing “Everything in Color” most stubbornly studies may be the body as a storehouse for old fear. Stalvey is not only saying, I no longer believe this. She is showing what it feels like when the nerves keep the faith after the mind has walked out.

That pressure gives the prose its charge. Stalvey writes in a mode equal parts scene, reflection, and spiritual self-annotation. Her sentences are measured, immediately readable, and only occasionally too fluent for their own good. Even when the prose loosens, it does not go soft-focus. She prefers a rhythm of memory, sensation, interpretation: a remembered incident, a bodily aftershock in the present, then a sentence that names the logic binding them. The language stays skin-close without turning confessional-mushy, analytical without putting on the chalk-dust authority of the classroom. Better still, it builds a carnal lexicon for the book’s larger claims: roots, blood, milk, water, womb, bloom, skin, breath. Those images do work the prose would otherwise have to spell out too bluntly. “Color,” especially, becomes more than a title metaphor. It becomes the book’s answer to moral flattening. Color arrives when life refuses to stay filed.

The drawings do the work the prose, left alone, might be tempted to explain twice. “Everything in Color” is not illustrated testimony. It is a graphic memoir that knows exactly why it needs to be graphic. The bleached-down memory pages hold regulation in visual form: church classrooms, playground borders, disciplinary interiors, all the small bureaucracies of obedience. The richer pages – coral, blue, deep green, warm flesh, heat-blooming hues – belong increasingly to maternity, desire, panic, reverie, and recovered sacredness. This is not prettiness with critical credentials pinned on. Black and white is the world as authority would like it: sorted, bordered, ruled. Color arrives when experience outruns doctrine.

The braid is what keeps that visual intelligence from becoming merely decorative. This is not a straight chronology of injury and release. It is recursive in a way that earns its room. A toddler tantrum sits beside memories of corporal punishment. Postpartum tenderness sits beside purity-culture shame. The adult mother telling her son he is still good when he makes mistakes becomes one of the book’s fiercest rebuttals to a theology of total depravity. Chapter titles such as “The Garden,” “The Mother,” “The Flesh and the Spirit,” “The Tree,” and “Home” do more than divide sections. They announce that the memoir is organized as a passage through symbolic states, not just a run of events. The braid does not warehouse material. It puts grain back into it.

There the ambition finally starts earning its keep. Stalvey does not merely indict evangelicalism. She builds a counter-reading. The proposition with real teeth is not rebellion for the dopamine hit, nor a misty sermon about “self-trust,” but a transfer of moral authority from doctrine to relation. Motherhood is where the book stops pretending abstraction can pay the bill. Looking at her son, Stalvey can no longer sustain the logic that children are born bad, that punishment is the deepest form of justice, that love becomes credible only when braided with threat. When she thinks, “Maybe God is a mother,” the line lands because the memoir has already made it expensive – paid for in blood, milk, sleep deprivation, intrusive thoughts, and the fear-struck softness of keeping another life alive. Beside Tommy, original sin does not merely look mistaken. It looks obscene.

That is also why the book’s politics matter without ever becoming a smug accessory. “Everything in Color” speaks directly to the afterlife of purity culture, to church systems that call domination care, to the long habit of treating women’s bodies as supervised property, and to the crooked machinery that passes itself off as moral order. Its politics are plain on sight, and, for me, that is a feature rather than a defect. More important, they are earned in the grain of the writing. The book never starts sounding like it wants to moderate a panel on itself. Its relevance grows from scene rather than being pasted on afterward.

James is more than the memoir’s ethical foil, though the book wisely understands how easily he could have become one. He would be intolerable if he existed only to prove that a gentler Christian masculinity is possible. Instead he is a person shaped by loneliness, reserve, seriousness, and caution, but not wholly colonized by the punitive reflexes around him. Their relationship works because it never becomes pure fantasy. He is almost implausibly gentle, ethically careful without turning antiseptic, and funny in ways the book is smart enough not to overplay. The snowed-in chapter – the storm-locked chamber scene where intimacy becomes possible because they are trapped together and Stephanie finally asks for what she wants – is the book’s boldest test case. It works because it has been built from panic, embarrassment, slowness, consent, laughter, and relief. The revelation asks more than whether sex can be pleasurable. It asks whether erotic tenderness may tell the truth about holiness more accurately than purity culture ever did. That is a dangerous claim for a memoir like this to make. Stalvey comes impressively close to earning it.

The book’s deepest strength may be one that will likely be underpraised: it does not use motherhood as a softening device. It uses motherhood as a method of thought. Too many memoirs treat children as emotional proof of seriousness, or as a sentimental light source switched on for the last act. Stalvey makes motherhood intellectually invasive. It changes the terms of every earlier question. What kind of theology can survive looking at a child and calling him depraved? What kind of love keeps punishment at its center and still expects to be called love? What kind of God becomes more believable after birth, sleeplessness, milk, panic, tenderness, and grief? By making maternal life a site of argument rather than ornament, the memoir becomes larger and stranger than its setup first suggests.

Still, lucidity comes with a cost. “Everything in Color” sometimes reaches the conclusion a beat before the scene has fully arrived there. The late reflections on Eros, integration, and recovered sacredness are often moving, but now and then they feel a shade over-finished. Graham, the institutional bully in human form, is effective but almost too cleanly symbolic – doctrine in a human suit, temper included. Memoir is under no obligation to mystify every antagonist, and I would not ask it to. But there are moments when the book’s retrospective intelligence smooths what might have been more volatile or strange. The strongest pages trust image, sequence, and bodily sensation to carry the argument. The weaker ones spell it out after the point has already landed.

That limitation matters because the memoir’s best scenes are so good. A caged animal pacing in the zoo. A child asking what happens when we die. A body flushing red in the middle of intimacy. The awful inherited reflex by which love and punishment still try to call each other by the same name. In those moments Stalvey does not need to explain much. The work is already done. The page has told the truth before the essayistic mind arrives to annotate it.

If you need coordinates, Craig Thompson’s “Blankets” and Alison Bechdel’s “Fun Home” offer useful bearings, though Stalvey is more bodily than the former and less formally severe than the latter. If Linda Kay Klein’s “Pure” is another nearby companion, Stalvey’s distinction is to show purity culture where it finally lives: in pulse, stomach, skin, dream, and bed.

For me, the book settles at 87/100, which translates to 4 stars on Goodreads: not because its ambitions are modest, but because they are large enough to leave visible seams. Even so, the seams belong to something alive. What continues to ring afterward is not one argument but a relay of revisions: the child who thinks God might be arboreal, the young woman treating her own body like contraband, the mother discovering that love can make old theologies look morally ludicrous, the adult refusing to parcel up hell for her son as inheritance. By the last pages, “color” no longer means uplift. It means the harder discipline of looking required to hold more than one thing at once – desire and reverence, grief and gladness, flesh and what keeps slipping the label, the child you were and the child now asking what happens when we die. Stalvey’s final turn is not that she escapes the old black-and-white world. It is that she stops mistaking its bars for load-bearing walls.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who grew up in a similar enough background, this book is so important to me. I followed along as bits were posted on Instagram and I am so excited to have a physical copy!

[Rosalie Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite books ever and it came out last week

[Bargain Sleuth Book Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and First Second Books for the digital copy of this book; I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I did not grow up with religion. My parents left their church when they thought it was becoming more about money than one’s faith. Yet, when I became an adult, I embraced the Catholic Church, for all its faults. Yet, I could never understand how evangelical “Christians” could say that Catholics aren’t Christians. That is only one thing that bothers me about the evangelical movement and why it’s so fascinating reading about people raised that way.

Everything in color is a graphic memoir along the lines of Tia Leving’s A Well-Trained Wife and April Joy’s Star-Spangled Jesus. There’s a definite faith-deconstruction arc being explored in the book. The central thought process of re-parenting oneself after being indoctrinated as a child is, for lack of a better word, fascinating in how some people overcome their childhoods.

This graphic memoir does contain some “graphic” material with illustrations of nakedness (here’s where I get on my soapbox and say just like comedian George Carlin used to, ‘I’d rather have my kids watch two people making love than two people trying to kill each other.’) The illustrations are truly beautiful artwork throughout, and more intimate scenes show the openness of author Stephanie Stalvey.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who is curious how one overcomes childhood indoctrination of religion.

[Kristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything in Color: A Love Story is a deeply personal graphic memoir that explores the author’s journey through religious deconstruction, trauma, and guilt. As someone raised Catholic, I found her experiences painfully relatable, especially the hypocrisy of professing belief in a living, loving God while withholding that love from anyone who didn’t share the “right” views.

The book doesn’t shy away from the emotional and spiritual consequences of that environment, and its honesty is one of its greatest strengths. Some of the content around nakedness and thoughts about sex was more explicit than I expected, but it never felt pornographic. Rather, it underscored how deeply religion can entangle shame with the body and desire.

While I found the art style pretty, it felt somewhat juvenile compared to the weight of the subject matter, which occasionally created a tonal disconnect for me. That said, the emotional impact of the story is undeniable. The author’s depiction of pregnancy loss was especially devastating and moved me to tears. Overall, this is a raw, vulnerable work that will strongly resonate with readers who have grappled with faith, loss, and the long process of untangling belief from harm.

[Dayamarali Espinosa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interrogating her own upbringing in an evangelical community, Stephanie Stalvey weaves a story of faith, alienation, romance and acceptance, in this beautifully painted graphic memoir. Perfect for fans of Blankets by Craig Thompson and Fun Home by Alison Bechdel.

My first read of graphic novel in religions/memoir. I will give this a 3.5 stars. It interesting of how this author wrote this graphic novel in love story and color of experience of growing up and question about belief and stuff.

#NetGalley

[Cherese · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked her art work and honest reflection on growing up in a church pressed by the evangelical movement. I think for the most part this story will resonate with many who had a similar upbringing. Part of me was wondering why place so much emphasis on purity but the movement placed that on and in her. I really appreciate how in all her grappling she didn't abandon her faith but came to a more God centered understanding of love.

[Katie Blakeslee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished this and I'm feeling raw and full of wonder. I LOVED THIS BOOK. So much, it feels like it is now a part of me. "...and for all the church kids," the dedication reads. BUT I WAS NOT PREPARED. There is so much of my own story I could project onto this. "I think I've found my spiritual doppelgänger," I gushed to my husband when I was halfway through. Sometimes all I could do was hand him the book so that he could read a passage while I had a good cry. (All good tears.) (He is now reading the book too.) The artwork is gorgeous; breathtaking. The storytelling is well-paced, clever, and balanced. The writing is a work of art all by itself. What can I say? Pure poetry. Stumbling across this book feels like more than fate. It feels like a wink from across the universe, like a wave from an old friend I've never met, like an extremely sophisticated Instagram algorithm... but also, and more importantly, it feels like a gift.

A note that I think will be helpful for any person of any background or faith to keep in mind: This is first and foremost a graphic memoir that recounts the author's lived experience growing up in the late 90's/early aughts evangelical/fundamentalist church while also revealing the spiritual, psychological, and emotional fallout so many tender hearts (like my own) endured in the face of biased assumptions about God and authoritarian prescriptivism. This is NOT a book of theology. This is NOT an altar call. This is NOT even a "Christian book." That being said, one could say it is a book for Christians. But it is a book for non-Christians too. More precisely, it is an autobiographical work of graphic nonfiction that I think someone from any faith background could enjoy. Additionally, it is a work of art. Read it as those two things FIRST, and THEN I guarantee you will be delighted and inspired by the theology therein.

With this in mind, I will still personally share: I was taken aback at first that the author chose not to definitively state exactly "where she stands" (to borrow faith-speak) at the end of the book. (This is not a spoiler!) I honestly saw so much of myself in this (art school! the good girl double-majoring as the black sheep! big boobs!) that I forgot the whole point should not be to merely see myself in the work. After all, what would it mean for the author to spend an entire graphic novel in critical examination of transactional, fear-based evangelical assurances just to turn around and make a definitive, possibly evangelical, statement in response? That's not what this book is. And that makes it all the more profound. Because, while the author may not definitively state where she stands, one could argue she still leaves some pretty meaningful breadcrumbs along the way. Her character even says, "Sometimes it seems like my doubt puts me in danger of losing God. But... I don't want to lose anything. I just want the freedom to let it all expand." And I think this narrative choice reflects a great deal of respect for her intended reader, as well as a demonstrated commitment to what her own spiritual discovery has revealed.

UGH. I love this book. And if you're a curious person, if you're a 'look up at the stars and wonder' person, if you're a 'we literally do NOT have all the answers and that's kind of the whole point of faith or did you think faith meant something different' person, then I think you will love this book too.

[celestialpixels_ · Rating 5 out of 5]

🌈 When Faith, Love, and Truth All Bloom in Color ✨

Stephanie Stalvey’s "Everything in Color" is a luminous graphic memoir that peels back the layers of a life shaped by evangelical faith, shame, and the redemptive power of love. From the controlled black-and-white world of her upbringing to the vibrant hues of self-acceptance, this is a story about stepping out of shadows and into fullness.

We follow Stalvey’s journey growing up in an evangelical community where obedience and purity were woven tightly with identity. In that world, desire was dangerous, thoughts were suspect, and loving the “wrong” way felt like betrayal. But as she builds a life of her own - falling in love with a seminarian named James, becoming a mother, and questioning the doctrines she was raised to believe - the rigid lines of her past begin to crack.

What I admired most is how "Everything in Color" balances revelation with tenderness. The illustrations (mixed media, expressive, raw) echo the emotional journey she takes. The story doesn’t shy away from the guilt, fear, and internal battles she faced, but it also doesn’t leave the reader stranded in pain. Love, vulnerability, and reclamation have their own voice here.

This memoir reminded me, in tone and emotional honesty, of works like "Blankets" by Craig Thompson or "Fun Home" by Alison Bechdel - stories that dare to take faith, identity, and love seriously. Stalvey’s faith-deconstruction arc is powerful, but it never feels purely academic: it’s lived, messy, hopeful.

If I had a small critique, it’s that some transitions felt a bit abrupt, moments where the narrative leapt forward emotionally before giving us full space to linger. But even then, those leaps testify to the urgency and weight of her story.

✨ "Everything in Color" is for anyone who’s ever wrestled with faith, shame, and the courage to love authentically. It’s a memoir that colors outside the lines and in doing so, teaches us that some truths simply refuse to remain in black and white.

🙏 Thank you to Stephanie Stalvey, First Second Books, and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

[Kitty Stryker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have enjoyed Stephanie Stalvey’s art online for quite some time, and was so excited for this book, I pre-ordered it twice! I’m glad I did, because I definitely want to keep one copy, and I am delighted to have a copy I can lend out.

This is such a beautiful story that both broke my heart and helped stitch it back together. The art is absolutely gorgeous and evocative, vibrant, and relatable. The text is incredible. I grew up pagan, so I did not grow up with this idea that sensuality was inherently sinful, and I feel like this book really helped me understand just how devastating that is, not only for a child but for an adult.

I feel like reading this book helped me understand why evangelicals are so fixated on the things they’re fixated on, and how much of it is not based in logic, but in fear, which is a lot harder to untangle. It does not pull punches about the accountability the church has for that kind of emotional abuse to create an environment of control, but I feel like it’s also very compassionate to people who are growing up in that environment. I didn’t really fully understand it before, and I feel like I understand it a lot better now.

But it’s not just a story of interrogating the authors relationship to faith, though that is very much intertwined in the other themes. It’s also about the author getting in touch with herself, and falling in love with someone who was wrestling with some of the same questions, though from a different perspective. I think that’s really helpful for many people, and I hope that this book gets a very wide reach. I think it will be eye-opening for a lot of people, whether you are currently in a high control religion and beginning to ask questions but wrestling with guilt for doing so, or you have fully deconstructed, or like me, this entire mindset is a little bit alien to you. It’s really powerful and I’m so glad that I got to experience it.

[Tanesha Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot talk about the art enough - absolutely stunning art and such a well developed memoir! I've never read a graphic novel memoir before and I was so surprised and enthralled in Stephanie's life. I lovedddd the contrast between her fundamentalist upbringing and her current thoughts and how she was able to reconcile the two experiences. Like the way Stephanie is able to meaningfully and thoughtfully, think about her upbringing and the impact that it had on her life was soooo incredibly done. She touched on all of the really hard to understand parts of fundamentalism and Christianity, such as purity culture, Hellfire, being a church kid, growing up highly religious, and trying to figure out exactly what you feel vs. what you were told to feel via religion.

As someone who is constantly reconciling my own religious past (and religious present) - this is a wonderfully done memoir. I don't want to say too much in fear of spoiling it, but it reminds me of a conversation my best friend and I often have about seeing God and how God is often misconstrued to control others. I loveddd how Stephanie talked about meeting God through motherhood and how certain experiences helped her figure this all out. Life is so messy and imperfect, but gosh, it is beautiful.

Favorite quote: "How sacred and strange to be alive at all, to love this much, to hurt this badly, to be a part of it all, impossibly awake to all the wonder and terror entwined with out haunted ancient world, to have our turn in the unending circle, even if just for a moment."

I will be thinking about this book forever. Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for the e-ARC. I can't wait for everyone to be able to read it.

[Matt Graupman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I deleted most of my social media accounts over a year ago (November 2024, if you know you know) but Instagram is one of the few apps that survived the purge. Truth be told, I'd like to delete that one, too (because fuck Mark Zuckerberg), but every once in a while I'm reminded why it's still semi-valuable to me. Yes, the algorithm serves up too many Suggested posts rather than accounts I actually follow, but that's how I stumbled onto Stephanie Stalvey's comics. "Everything In Color: A Love Story" is Stalvey's debut graphic novel and it tracks her upbringing in a deeply religious household and how it went on to affect her faith (or loss thereof), sexuality, and intimate relationships, particularly with her husband, James. The obvious touchstone is Craig Thompson's classic "Blankets" but Stalvey definitely carves out her own space with her own voice. "Everything In Color" is critical without being preachy and it's surprisingly steamy at times (it would definitely get banned in schools and libraries by pearl-clutching Christians). I loved her art style and her message of inclusion, love, and respect; it should be a simple message but, in this current political climate, it feels almost revolutionary.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

-I like you so much it hurts.
-I think I’m still a little bit in shock about that.

An insightful look at the complexities of how religion can shape you, for better or worse, and its lasting effects on every aspect of your life. While it's not normally a topic I gravitate towards, I found Stephanie's journey quite relatable. The everpresent internal conflict with a woman's body, mental health, how she presents to the public and what that says about her all at war with each other. The anxieties of simply being a woman existing in this world coupled with marriage and having a family whilst becoming an adult. Adding in the twisting depth of religion and how you choose to evolve with it of your own free will, coming into your own sense of self, and the endless self reflection. I found this story inspiring. She's been through a lot and seems likely to always be in a state of flux with religion, but she continues to push herself forward in all of the best ways. The art style really enhances the emotionality woven throughout the narrative. The use of color and texture were particularly impressive.

Thanks to NetGalley and First Second Books for the arc!

[Tala · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you First Second Book for providing this book for review consideration via Net Galley. All opinions are my own.I was not raised religious, but I was surrounded by people who were, and I am familiar with the mental gymnastics they would often have to perform, but not to such an intimate degree. This memoir was sobering and illuminating. The immovable binaries that the author was raised with are painful to read about, but the loss of her innocence when she is introduced to the concept of Hell and the rapture was especially horrifying, and the art did a phenomenal job of showing that inner struggle. I fell deeply in love with the art in general, which is gorgeous and perfect, but the mythological symbolism the author chose to weave throughout her musings was particularly effective. I raced through this book and I eagerly anticipate whatever she chooses to write next. This memoir would make a fantastic addition to any library's adult graphic novel collection. 

[Lisa Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did not read what this story was about, I just thought the cover was great and I also liked the title. This is an adult graphic novel. The illustations are wonderful. The story is interesting. It makes a person think, As relationships develop and you interact with others in the world--the opinions of what others say and do. The main characters were feeling pressures of others based on religious beliefs and how they are interpreted by others. Everyone has their opinions about how things go and it is best to do what you feel and what you believe. The characters were feeling the sway and not sure how they should feel.
I think the thoughts may be what lots of people feel. It really makes one think about religion and interpretation. Do you go to he--? or do you not? What determines if you go to heaven or he--?

[Nicholette · Rating 4 out of 5]

The illustrations in this were absolutely captivating. Do I agree with all her ideologies? Of course not. And C.S. Lewis I feel would be OK with that, and if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for me. This was a wonderful look into a young girl growing up as a “church kid“ and how that affected her adult life. I really enjoyed following her story and learning more about the moments that brought her doubt and questions. The real shining star in all of this is the love story with her husband. Readers will enjoy watching them fall in love and figure out what that means in their faith. It’s very sweet and I fell in love with both of them. Thank you very much to NetGalley for the ARC. I greatly appreciated Stephanie‘s transparency and honesty and I’m so glad to have shared her story too.

[Logan McQueary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been following Stephanie Stalvey on Instagram for about a year now so I have been eager to read this book for a while. Her art has unlocked for me layers of religious trauma that I didn’t realize were so ingrained into my nervous system. I had to take breaks from reading this at various points to just cry and feel the heaviness of it all. It’s far heavier than I had thought it was.

Stephanie’s story is not my story but there’s so much of my experience that resonates with hers. Us “church kids” get it. I wish deconstruction was a thing I could accomplish with some end goal in mind but I’m constantly reminded that it’s an ongoing process and one I am far from finished with. I could honestly read another 500 pages of Stephanie’s story but maybe it’s time that I start to get in touch with my own. I’m so grateful a book like this exists to help so many of us on our healing journeys.