By: George Williams
Have you ever felt like there was a lack of comics for older readers? Well, so did Sarah Phoebe Miller, the author of “You Belong Here”, a young adult graphic novel published in March 2025. Through Tri-C, I attended a volunteer book giveaway fair at the Westside Market. Miller hosted a comic-making workshop at the event.
When the copy was passed around, I couldn’t help but continue to read after her speech was over. As a frequent comic reader, I noticed “You Belong Here” captivated me in the same way realistic fiction comics aimed at middle school students did. The difference was in a more mature plotline, set during a student’s senior year of high school. Before handing her back the book’s copy, I sang my praises of the strong character definitions and personalities in the first few pages. I mentioned to the author that it was in the style of other books typically aimed at younger readers, and she appreciated my insight, as it was intentional on her part. She chose the senior year of high school as the characters’ timeframe because she thought the emotions felt very high at that time.
I followed up for an interview on Miller’s creative process. She reported that the comic medium allowed her to base the characters on people she knew in real life, but let her fictionalize them to better fit the book’s themes. The main character, Essie, is in a situation like the author’s at that point in her life, but book character’s line becomes increasingly divergent as plot progresses. For example, Essie’s brother suffers from drug addiction, and it led some of Miller’s peers to ask about her real-life brother. Furthermore, the ending of the book was left open for interpretation to allow the readers to immerse themselves deeper in the story and feel the emotions the characters do.
Miller’s approach to making the novel appeal to the young adult audience was to make the characters as realistic and relatable as possible. She approached this by giving every character good intentions but a strong flaw. This led me to engage further with the characters since there was no sense of narrative predictability. Every character seemed like they could be the main character of their own novel. Compared with much other young adult media that attempt to excite readers with darker themes, Miller tackles heavier themes tactfully. For Essie’s brother’s drug addiction, for example, it takes place before the book’s events. This allows the plot to explore the idea without weighing down the tone.
“You Belong Here” by Sarah Phobe Miller was seven years in the making. From the first pitch of the project in 2017 to Miller’s collaboration with the illustrator Morgan Beem, it was a long road. In our interview, Miller noted that the long time it takes for a project like this to eventually become a source of pride. “Life happens while you’re making plans”, one of the quotes from book says, and that is especially true of the creative process.
