READ & REVIEWED: How was your day by Boey

A tender and humorous adult graphic novel about life's messy moments, and how as humans, we are all just trying to figure things out along the way.

How Was Your Day by Cheeming Boey started as a simple text exchange between the author-illustrator and his friend Cheryl—a fun project capturing her first week at work as a gift. But before long, Boey found himself completely wrapped up in Cheryl’s world, and that eventually grew into this graphic novel about life's messy moments, and how as humans, we are all just trying to figure things out along the way.

At first, the story felt a little random—Chery’s first job, family drama, fostering a dog, anxiety—but soon, I found myself hooked. Her day-to-day struggles felt so relatable and often hilarious, yet at times, heartbreaking. Her life sparks the kind of existential questions we all wrestle with at some point—where are we headed in life, why are we stuck, why aren’t we doing better? We see her pushing forward, quitting a toxic job, searching for her worth and navigating family expectations—all while dealing with everyday nuisances like creepy crawlies (which honestly, I would react to just like she does 😅).

Reading this felt like peeking into someone's diary, complete with snippets of Chinese woven in. Though Cheryl is Malaysian and lives in Malacca, her conversations with family and friends felt so familiar to me. And Boey’s illustrations? Raw, funny, and just perfect for the story. I especially loved that we got to see the real Cheryl and some of their actual text exchanges at the end—it makes everything even more personal.

Thank you Definitely Books (Pansing) for sending this lovely read to me. How Was Your Day by Boey is now available at all good bookstores.

Disclaimer: The book was provided by Pansing for our review. As always, all opinions are ours.

©Vivian Teo. All content and photos are copyrighted to Vivian Teo unless otherwise specified.