Falling in love? Scary. Falling for your best friend? Terrifying. Naming all the ways your heart hurts? Impossible.
College upperclassman Molly Song is set on getting over her ex this semester, but it’s hard when she dumps you via email and posts all over social media about cozying up with her study-abroad roommate. After convincing her friend, Lou Kingston, that they should go to parties and find rebound girlfriends, Molly learns she should be careful what she wishes for when she starts to develop real feelings for someone she’s not sure feels the same way.
Meanwhile, Molly and Lou’s exes, Yona and Olene, have left their pasts behind as they study abroad in France. Together they see springtime in Marseille, find new friendships, and uncover new personal truths. Will their whirlwind trip bloom into a whirlwind romance, or will their journeys to self-discovery put them on different paths entirely?
Intriguing
This cover immediately spoke to me on Netgalley, especially with the genre description. The book was advertised to fans of Heartstopper and Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me. I enjoyed both graphic novels/comics, but this story surely has a more mature vibe to it. For once, our main characters are set in college and find themselves having way more sex than the other characters. Secondly, they go through more relationships on both romantic and platonic level. Our first protagonist has a lot of baggage and struggles with maintaining healthy connections. But not only Molly struggles to find herself and love, but also the other characters teach us about heartbreak and boundaries.
The story
We are thrown into a setting of breakups and heartbreaks. The mood is thus primarily sad and dense, but lightened by the friendships the characters cherish. Our main characters are Molly, Lou, Olene, and Yona, who try to find themselves through their last year of college. Some of them change their course of life and their perception of themselves entirely. And I loved this representation of drastic change, although they struggle with sustaining their friendships through these changes. Although the story only covers a few months, the characters go through a lot of troubles—some self-induced, some in response to other’s decisions. Friendship is the main focus of the story despite the initial scenario of romantic heartbreak. The ending is less overtly happy but important and realistic in a way of a continuous struggle to be a good friend and person.
The style
By the end of the book, Ren Strapp allows us to see behind the scenes of this debut graphic novel. We find some earlier stages of the pages as much as cut characters. Strapp made it easy for us to distinguish the characters due to their distinct personalities and moods, but also by their diverse styles. The cast of characters itself is wonderfully diverse and becomes even more diverse during their self-discovery. The illustrator moreover put specific emphasis on colors, as she explains, and thus gives the whole book amazing dynamics and a lot of thought. Both the colors and the structure of the panels and illustrations emphasize the moods represented in them, which I adored! The book is thus very three-dimensional in its story and on the surface.
In conclusion,
Easy to read but still emotional and complex, this story quickly drew me in. We follow mainly four characters on their way to find love and themselves, struggling with friendship and desires. I really enjoyed this colorful and proud story of growth.
The author:
Ren Strapp is a comic artist, designer, and gender nonconforming lesbian werewolf. She grew up in Susquehannock territory and now lives on unceded land at the confluence of the Wimahl and Willamette Rivers. Ren started her comics career in zines and web comics and will be a zinester until she dies. Her work is inspired by risograph printing and American traditional tattooing. She loves weight lifting and hiking. Source