Reviewed by Ben Crane
Review Source: Comic Book Yeti
Book Author: Nadine Takvorian
How do you talk to young people about genocide? This is the question at the heart of Nadine Takvorian’s Armaveni, a semi-autobiographical account of the summer in her own teenage years when she learned her family’s story from the Armenian genocide. Takvorian grapples with the question both through the characters of her parents, who have kept the story from her out of a desire to protect her from the painful truth, and in the pages of the book itself, searching for the right way to broach it with her YA readers.
The result is a book that is powerful and personal, a history of an atrocity that is not well known outside of the communities it affected, and a tale of the generational trauma cascading through nearly a century of diaspora. Continue reading on Comic Book Yeti.
Find more books on this topic on our War and Anti-War and Grief booklists.
Armaveni by Nadine Takvorian
Published by Chronicle Books on March 10, 2026
Genres: Asian American, Graphic Novels and Comics, Grief, War
Pages: 344
Reading Level: High School
ISBN: 9781646146772
Publisher's Synopsis:
A bold, autobiographical graphic novel chronicling one girl’s quest to uncover her family’s history during the Armenian genocide.
Nadine loves stories and her mother loves to tell them — all but one. Nadine would give anything to learn about her family's history in Armenia and Turkey — where they came from and how they came to America — but it is just too painful for her parents. All Nadine knows is that they were caught up in the Armenian genocide.
Until one day the dam bursts. And through that flood of stories and memories, and a trip back to their people's homelands, Nadine discovers a key to unlocking her own heritage and the courage to speak up when injustice rears its head again.
Told in interwoven historical, contemporary, and fantastical sequences, Armaveni is a gripping graphic novel debut and a much-needed historical document.
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