SoXiety
Society by Tamlyn Teow
Reviewed by Lara Cain Gray
Tamlyn Teow is an artist and creative designer whose children’s book credits include illustrations and cover art for Sandy Bigna’s Little Bones and Helen Edwards’ On Gallant Wings. SoXiety gives Teow an opportunity to spread her own creative wings as author/illustrator of an ambitious graphic novel style picture book for teens and adults. This book is the first in an envisaged series of five books, collectively known as The Book of Kin.
This is a complex work with few words and much made of visual metaphors. The Book of Kin website tells us the title is a merger of two words – Society and Anxiety – with the capital X representing the individual. X, then, is also the name of the main character, who we follow through a dystopian expose of the impacts of social media, the hectic news cycle, and increasing narcissism. Amidst the excesses of a dopamine-addicted society, X becomes depressed and falls into a fantastically alien parallel landscape, abundant with flora and fauna, and yet still eliciting an uncomfortable response from the viewer.
After a dark night of metamorphosis, X returns to the ‘real world’, bringing with him a seed. As the seed grows, people in the community begin to congregate beneath its branches, leaving their screens behind as they gaze in wonder at the tree, and each other. Some remove masks, others clutch at their limbs as if suddenly re-embodied, thus ending on a hopeful note of connection. A large moth flies beyond the melee, perhaps towards Part 2 of this intriguing project.
Teow’s artwork is richly detailed and visually complicated, sketched in pencil using only black, white, and yellow for highlights. The format resembles a picture book, but the internal layout uses panels and strategic spatial arrangement for graphic novel-style visual storytelling. Note that this book is for older readers and may be scary or confusing for young children.
For educators, this book is a gift for senior classrooms. The website includes teacher notes for years 9 and 10, along with extensive links to YouTube videos of the creative process, explorations of the metaphors and messages, and a Creators Guide that discusses the whole book, panel by panel. One of Teow’s goals in bringing this book series to the world was that the process of slowly reading and interpreting this story would, itself, be a ‘seed’ to ignite change. It invites readers to disconnect from their phones and discuss their responses to the beautiful, the grotesque, and the alarming within this unsettling narrative.
If you love this book, use the QR code on the back cover to follow the series as it evolves. As a cross-genre, niche publication, there will soon also be a Kickstarter enabled to support promotional activities in the difficult ‘online world of ecommerce, algorithms and AI’ where unconventional reads can struggle to find their readers.
Riveted Press, 2025
The Book of Kin by Tamlyn Teow
Tamlyn Teow
