I Feel Awful, Thanks

Joana, a twentysomething witch, makes her first foray into enchanted adult life. The elements are in place—the intrigue of the big city, her first job, a promising love interest, and a new living situation. But minor crises and emotional curveballs soon find her sinking into snowballing psychological distress. The city and coworkers are okay, but the boss subtly steals her work and undermines her shaky confidence, her roommate is impossible to please, and she risks her romantic prospects with her inability to express her emotions. The story captures the slow-burn nature of young adulthood’s familiar challenges and models how to manage them. Joana, after stumbles and scrambles, pursues therapy in the form of “dragon training” to work with her emotions rather than reject them. The slightly fantastical setting of a magic-infused London and Pickle’s cute-but-cool character designs provide a useful framework to hold the all-too-raw experience of entering adulthood at arm’s length, while also offering helpful techniques to understand and manage one’s profound and complicated inner world.