The young leads make a particularly engaging couple. . . .Yelchin has such a gift for depicting faces with distinctive character that everyone here, from struggling artists to scowling soldiers and functionaries, will leave as strong an impression on readers as the oppressive setting. An exceptional work: atmospherically illustrated and underpinned by strong but restrained feelings.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
[An] effectively standalone piece. . . . This proves a detailed, poignant, and gut-wrenchingly relevant elucidation of life under a government whose autocratic practices are particularly oppressive for the humanitarian pursuits of art and love. This is in no small part due to award-magnet Yelchin’s art, the gray palette capturing the never-quite-numbing-enough psychological oppression while the limber, idiosyncratic figures—along with the author’s indispensable humor—hold tight to the humanity struggling beneath it all.
—Booklist (starred review)
It is a compelling story, and Yelchin tells it with grace, sympathy for his younger self, and a clear pain that lingers. . . .The powerful intersection of art style and carefully chosen text is especially stunning. . . . The illustrations are ultimately a demonstration of his considerable talents and make it clear why he felt compelled to develop his art even though it put him at significant risk.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)
Tension builds throughout, with the varying degrees of sharpness in the black-and-white panel illustrations perfectly matching that mood and reflecting the murkiness of what Yevgeny understands. Though the stakes are high, this political and artistic coming-of-age story has plenty of broadly relatable moments of indecision, stubbornness, frustration, and (often dark) humor, as its young subject figures out who he is, where he wants to be, and how to get there.
—The Horn Book (starred review)
Yelchin captures the harsh reality of being forced to choose between immigrating, serving time in the military, or marrying an American—only to end up in an asylum, separated from both family and Libby.
—School Library Journal
The achromatic art style and occasional use of photographic images of Leonid Brezhnev create a tense, claustrophobic mood—fitting for a story in which KGB forces lurk around every corner. . . . I Wish I Didn’t Have to Tell You This is a gripping graphic memoir about an escape from Soviet Russia.
—Foreword Reviews
With this book, Eugene Yelchin joins the community of author-artists who have dared to examine their troubling pasts with honesty, insight, and cleansing humor. Yelchin’s true story—as dark and satirical as a tale by Gogol or a Bulgakov novel—is matched by his art: strong black-and-white line drawings against washes of pervasive gray, as gray as the wintery steppes, as gray as Soviet Russia, which he depicts with uneasy familiarity. His characters speak the silent language that only an illustrator with the instincts of a fine actor can bring to the page. Their gestures and facial expressions tell much more than their words. Yelchin’s book is as much a storyboard for a film as it is a graphic memoir, precisely envisioned and carefully crafted to bring the reader directly into the author’s experience.
—David Small, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller and National Book Award Finalist Stitches: A Memoir
Yelchin’s bold and unblinking memoir explores the moment when the typical longings of youth everywhere—to create, to express yourself, to fall in love—slam into the brutal realities of the Soviet state. Timely, poignant, and unsettling—a remarkable life rendered in stark black and white by an artist unafraid to explore the gray uncertainties of where love stops and self-preservation begins.
—M. T. Anderson, author of National Book Award winner and Michael L. Printz Honor Book The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party
This book—this book! By turns heartbreaking and gut-wrenching, Eugene Yelchin’s eloquent memoir both a cautionary tale about the sacrifices demanded by a government that lies, denies, conceals, and coerces its citizens into compliance and a poignant love letter to his past. Its resonance is inescapable. So is its beauty.
—Candace Fleming, author of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award winner and Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner The Family Romanov
Exploring questions of protest, courage, and survival that are as relevant today as they were under Brezhnev and Andropov, this unputdownable graphic memoir is a must-read for teens and adults.
—Literary Hub
Moral and artistic complexity are the memoir’s core. Yelchin examines his psychological defense mechanisms as he tries to make sense of his love for the city of Leningrad, admiration for Americans, and terrifying vulnerability as a Jew. . . .Tolstoy himself would respect Yelchin’s insistence on telling the truth.
—Jewish Book Council
The sequel to “The Genius Under the Table” also stands on its own, chronicling a Jewish man’s escape from Soviet Russia in the 1980s with a unique art style that incorporates photographs. Yelchin’s mom and grandmother provide comic relief with their melodrama and uncanny wisdom.
—The Associated Press
