Publication Date: May 5, 2025
Illustrator Elodie Ginsburg and her spendthrift best friend, Boris, are inseparable. Taking care of an audacious yellow-haired clown in a red-and-white-striped onesie and oversized black shoes can be a challenge. However, Boris means the world to Elodie. He is a handful, but he’s her handful. Their symbiosis is disrupted when Ivan Lennard, a former professional cyclist with a closely guarded secret, moves into the house next door and becomes a regular occurrence in their lives. Each encounter is a catalyst for Boris to spiral more out of control and increase his outrageous demands, until Elodie finds herself at a crossroads and has to make the most difficult decision she’s ever made.
Holding the physical copy of Ivan, Boris, and Me by Suze Leonie, you will intuit that the experience of this book will be like none other. The cover illustration is a colorful collage of ordinary and whimsical objects. By the end of the first page, you will meet the artist Elodie and her clown, Boris.
Elodie and Boris have a conversation at the end of the chapter; this structure continues throughout the book. The conversation appears as a script but serves the reader as a summary of the chapter’s events. At first, the relationship appears as if two creatives have a unique friendship until Elodie’s mother interrupts the whimsy.
Her mother is verbally and emotionally abusive. Elodie’s art is below her mother’s perceived level of acceptable maturity. Elodie is made to feel she is an embarrassment and dismissed as useless. However, the abuse fuels her mother’s emotional need for power, and Elodie cannot seem to escape as an adult any easier than being trapped as a child in vile criticism.
Now, the author’s clever style begins to become apparent. Boris is a coping mechanism. Elodie can only handle life if accompanied by the escapes of a child. She can only move forward with her own personal goals with the support of a friend. But Boris is not a character who has been introduced solely for the value of levity, there is deep symbolism here.
I have read many works by authors demonstrating the difficulties of mental illness; poetry collections, memoirs, fiction, some with great analogies. Yet, this story is such an inventive way to demonstrate the moment-by-moment anguish of not only surviving but slowly succeeding to make a life for oneself while carrying the burden of anxiety. The only drawback of reading this symbolic novel is that there was a mental exhaustion for me at times, which may actually have been intended to make readers physically feel Elodie’s experience.
Suze Leonie has created an unparalleled fictional friendship in Ivan, Boris, and Me. Her characters have literally brought to life the burden of living with the anxious consequences of enduring emotional and mental abuse.  
Suze Leonie is a literary fiction and children’s fiction author, photographer and illustrator from a Dutch coastal town. She has a passion for literature and philosophy and when she isn’t writing or drawing, she’s usually found with a book in her hand. She’s known for her insatiable interest in a variety of subjects.
In the spring of 2024 Suze Leonie made her debut with the novel Ivan, Boris and Me, which is the first book in a collection of literary works that heavily focus on human psychology. In the winter of 2024 she will make her second debut of the year with her first chapter book centered around Albert, a stuffed bear that gets a little bit broken.
When Suze Leonie is able to let go of her precious books she enjoys going to museums, good food, board games and long walks on the beach.
