A selection of February graphic novels

 Marie Curie: A Quest for Light by Anja C. Andersen and Frances Andreasen Osterfelt, with art by Anna Blaszczyk (2018) 136 pages

The writing is succinct. The art on every page looks like collages with paper cut outs of different colors and textures. Diary entries and letters make this biography very personal. I really enjoyed the creativity of this one.

 

 

 

 

Heartstopper: Volume 1 by Alice Oseman (2018) 288 pages

I'm working on the Hoopla challenge for 2025 while focusing on reading more graphic novels this year. February is Romantic Reads.  I flew through this first volume in one day. There is a lot of space between the panels on many pages and not much text in speech, thought, or mobile texts. Very creative how it tells the story visually as often as it does. I have not seen the TV series yet, and I'll probably wait to continue this comic series.

 

 

 

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O'Connell (2019) 289 pages

Compared to the one above, I liked the art and writing a bit better. The pages are denser with emotive visuals. Freddy Riley has her group of queer friends in high school. Laura Dean doesn't see their relationship as monogamous. Laura has so much extrovert energy and doesn't seem to care that she discards Freddy so easily when she wants attention from others. Freddy is so enamored with Laura's brief moments of attention that she doesn't notice her other truly good, close friends, or the new girl working several part-time jobs in town to pay for college. Freddy's eye opening journey is pretty special.

 

 

The Puerto Rican War: A Graphic History by John Vasquez Mejias (2024) 112 pages

I appreciate the timeline and interview with the author that is included at the end. It is a short story of Puerto Rican history that I was not familiar with before. The author makes prints from woodcuts. The text is challenging to read at times, but with concentration it could all be understood. The unique style is visually expressionistic and very detailed.

Deep Cuts by Kyle Higgins and Joe Clark with various artists (2024) 312 pages

I loved this! #1 in New Orleans 1917, the art and story are amazing, looking at the roots of modern jazz. #2 in Chicago 1928, a novice Broadway songstress has an adventure that references The Wizard of Oz. You begin to see that there are threads that connect the stories. #3 in Kansas City 1940, Alice, a young black girl, tries to solve the mystery of why her dad stopped his music career. This includes research at her local library! #4 in New York City 1956, is documentary-like looking at the jazz scene and the influence of harder drugs. #5 in Los Angeles 1968, shows threads connecting some of the previous stories, but is more countercultural and the art took me longer to embrace. #6 in multiple locations 1977, ties all the issues together. Characters and themes return. Jazz history comes full circle. Oh, and the lead sheets at the end are a cool bonus. I, too, wonder if there are audio tracks somewhere of this music.

Happyish

Happyish by Jeanette Escudero (2022) 245 pages

Alex Martinez was ready to mark the completion of a year since her unexpected, unwanted divorce when her neurologist told her that her headaches were caused by a brain tumor. Probably not cancerous, but still a big deal, because it needed to be removed soon, and it would require her to have a support system, in addition to lots of therapy and healing time.

This health news converged with her poorly received presentation to her longtime bosses at an auto parts company, which was vying to have its products sold in PriceMart stores. Her bosses told her to take some time off, and her reaction ‒ not knowing if that might have meant she was fired ‒ was to decide to travel to places that her younger sister wanted to see, before she died of leukemia many years before. And not to tell her two mothers about the tumor. Alex starts out at the Grand Canyon, then goes to Costa Rica, then to Puerto Rico.

The book covers Alex's journey, both in space and time and relationships. There's something about her that made it hard for me to relate to her exactly, but watching her live through it all felt authentic.

Don't Make Me Turn This Life Around

Don't Make Me Turn This Life Around by Camille Pagan, 238 pages

Eternal optimist Libby Ross has just found out that she's officially 10 years cancer-free. She's had a rough year, with her father's death, followed closely by her daughter's diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes, and now a lackluster relationship with her husband, so some good news should make her jump for joy. So why can't she get excited about it? Perhaps a long-overdue visit to Puerto Rico, where she first met her husband, will help out. But as that trip devolves into an escalating series of disasters, Libby starts to question her optimistic outlook, as well as the choices she's made in the past.

I flat-out LOVED Pagan's 2020 novel, This Won't End Well, so I had pretty high hopes for this book. Unfortunately, it fell flat, with a protagonist who felt more whiny than anything, and a series of problems that could easily be solved by characters just talking to each other. Granted, part of the block to the talk-it-out solution is Libby's grief over her father's death, but holy cow it took her a long time to figure that out. Meh.