FF Friday

A graphic novel about a very bad teen relationship, starring Freddie, a high school student hopelessly in love with Laura Dean, a girl who is both very charming and utterly selfish. It's on sale at B&N right now!

Both Freddie and Laura are completely out to everyone they know at the beginning of the novel. It's not a book without homophobia, but it is set in progressive SF and felt very real to my experience as an out high schooler in a liberal pocket of California. Freddie works at a lesbian sub sandwich shop where all the sandwiches are named after celesbians. She goes to queer girl parties and has parents who welcome her girlfriend into her home. She's also aware of how lucky she is, quipping that "LGBTQIA activists fought for centuries for me to have the right to fuck up like this."

It's really great seeing a LGBT YA graphic novel that is neither a getting-together story nor about coming out. Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me is more about learning to assert yourself and not take your support network for granted. Freddie's not necessarily quiet, but she's uncertain where her boundaries lie, and good at convincing herself that she's okay with things when she's not. She's the friend who says "I know I should break up with her" and doesn't, who gets so wrapped up in a relationship that she makes it her whole world.

That sounds like she should be a frustrating protagonist to follow, but she's not. You see how frustrated Freddie is with herself, how she tries and hopes that the next time will be different, how much she wants to be stronger. And then you watch her grow stronger, bit by bit. Laura Dean is also deliberately drawn as just irresistible enough that you can see why Freddie keeps going back to her. Her selfishness hides itself between a layer of California chill, a "well, I don't really care, so why do you care, I'm just doing me" bravado that makes Freddie blame herself for having feelings. She's got a leather jacket, a cool undercut and so many parties filled with people who seem to all be in love with her. It's easy to see why Freddie's so charmed.

Seriously, this graphic novel was great. If you were ever shy in high school, if you like reading about choosing to make friendship vital in your life rather than secondary to romance, if you like coming of age stories about queer girls... this is a gorgeous, funny, intensely relatable book.

Unrelated side note: there's a discussion of Daughter of Mystery, the first Alpennia book, going on at Metafilter.