“This graphic novel is stunning in every way. Wilson forgos panels in favor of a format that is part sketchbook, part journal, and part scrapbook—a choice that gives both the visuals and the narrative room to breathe. The artwork has an intimacy and immediacy that complements the text beautifully, and the vibrant color palette communicates the joy that the relationship between Lou and Jim brings them both. . . . Absolutely gorgeous, visually and emotionally.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“An achievement in visual storytelling . . . This solemn coming-of-age story is a deeply personal look at how the stigma of AIDS affected the quality of care and level of empathy received by those lost and a heartbreaking tale of how even the briefest of touches on someone’s life can last a lifetime and beyond.” —Booklist, starred review

"[A] a pensive but ultimately hopeful debut. . . Wilson renders it all in loose colored pencil sketches, with dialogue typed on slips of paper and taped to the page—a scrapbook approach attuned to the fragmentary nature of memory. Intimate and soft-spoken, this family album finds a hard-won note of grace in America’s fraught early reckoning with AIDS." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Emil Wilson’s The Nightingales is a book awash with tenderness, with the audacity and courage to make a room for kindness, with art that performs on each and every page the beautiful and most humane acts of remembering—particular, impressionistic, incomplete, eidetic, afire with humor and compassion. Here is an extraordinary achievement that takes history and offers it to the future as the most forgiving gift." —Mark Z. Danielewski, New York Times bestselling author of House of Leaves

“The Nightingales is a deeply moving book that brings to vivid life the alienation so many of us have felt on the road to adulthood as it illustrates the transformative power of friendship. I was overwhelmed with emotion on every page of this gorgeous graphic work. Emil Wilson manages to convey the quirky joys as well as the horrors of the 1980s—highlighting the relentless nightmare of the early days of AIDS—while also speaking to issues that couldn’t be more current. Here is a book that richly deserves a place alongside coming-of-age classics like Running with Scissors and Fun Home.” —Will Schwalbe, New York Times bestselling author of The End of Your Life Book Club 

"Tender and humane. I loved this book." —Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

"A singularly beautiful book, the subtlety of its layered and playful visuals a match for the emotional intricacies of this family drama and coming of age story." —Emma Donoghue, author of Room

"The Nightingales is one of the most moving, impactful, and beautiful books I've experienced in a long time. I devoured it in one sitting. I laughed, I cursed, I gasped, I cried my face off. The illustrations are gorgeous, smart, compelling; the storytelling is nuanced and poignant, yet funny. A unique and deeply-felt story about the relationship between a teenager, her family, two Pomeranians, and a man dying of AIDS in the mid-80s, The Nightingales is a tender, heartbreaking, and unforgettable look at the early days of the AIDS crisis in a small town in Oregon—it's also a reminder of what it means to live now." —Kate Schatz, New York Times bestselling author of Rad American History A-Z

“Gorgeously illustrated and emotionally piercing, this coming-of-age story set at the height of the AIDS epidemic shows how impactful one friendship can be on the direction of a life. Nuanced, empathetic, and impossible to set down. Highly recommended!” —Maia Kobabe, author of Gender Queer

“Told with the utmost care, Emil Wilson’s The Nightingales is exactly the kind of scathing, compassionate, and tragic family portrait that I love the most. I’ve urgently and insistently recommended this to every friend and loved one, so that I might have some company in laughing and crying and savouring this beautifully drawn story.” —Lee Lai, LAMDA-award winning author of Cannon

"It sneaks up on you, this special, quiet book of visual beauty and sentiment, simply but powerfully expressed; it brought me to tears. I lingered over every page of The Nightingales—so exquisite is its reproduction of the qualities of an artist’s sketchbook—and I was so touched by its story, that of a bold act of kindness and generosity that upends the lives of a fractured family. It was one of those rare reading experiences: I’ll not only always remember the book, but also the afternoon I read it. Its final image is unforgettable." —Timothy Schaffert, author of The Titanic Survivors Book Club

"The Nightingales is a book filled with heart and warmth and colour. Though there is loss and grief at its core, it sings about freedom and the vivid urgency of life. Inspiring and full of hope, it’s a book whose soul stays with you long after you’ve turned the last page." —Seán Hewitt, author of Open, Heaven
 
"The Nightingales is as brilliant as it is beautiful, a study in family and kindness, of doing the right thing, of not the doing the right thing, of surviving a home fraught with dysfunction. Emil Wilson shows us that under duress some people can show immense kindness and warmth while others just falter and wither. The Nightingales is a serious gem." —Willy Vlautin, author of The Left and the Lucky

"A beautiful, honest book about friendship and family." —Lizzy Stewart, author of The Wreck

“A moving, accessible work that emphasizes the transformative power of compassion in the face of fear.” —Library Journal