Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me

When your sister-in-law cleans out her book shelves, you get free books! Here is #1.

The art is gorgeous, my eyes were happy.

I loved Freddy and I loved her friends (especially Doodle!). The story is relatable and recognizable, and a spot on, sensitive portrayal of a toxic relationship. It’s about understanding who you are and what love should be like. Yes, Freddy, a relationship where the prerequisite is neglecting your friends is bad news.

The LGBTQ themes were written in such a wise and thoughtful way, I wanted to give the authors a hug.

The stuffed animals talking to each other was the cutest thing :)

The ending is great, I punched the air and said “yaaay!”

This is a slice-of-queer-teen-life book, sort of along the lines of Bloom. It follows Freddy and her tumultuous relationship with the terminally cool Laura Dean, who can’t seem to stop cheating on, breaking up with, and coming back to Freddy. Freddy can’t seem to quit Laura and it’s beginning to affect her friendships. Again, somewhat similar to Bloom, we have a main character who you sort of want to shake a little, to get her to wake up and see what’s happening outside her own head. As a reader, I was also rooting for Freddy to get some self-confidence and tell Laura Dean to fuck off already. But, as in real life, Freddy needs quite a bit of time to learn any lessons.

Freddy is a likable MC, her friend group, while small, is show more diverse, and there are some great lessons in this book. In fact, one of the quotes I tabbed felt especially personally relevant, as I found myself asking some similar questions of myself last year:

“What is it like to love this person who keeps breaking up with you, and then presumably coming back to you? What does your love with his person offer you? Does it make you happy? Does it give you what you need to be a better person?”

That’s some deep shit. That’s what I like to see in my YA reads! Anyway…

Not to keep comparing it to Bloom (but here’s the Judging post in case you want to check it out), because they really are two different, wonderful, comics with queer teens, but this comic also has a limited color scheme (pastel pink, white, black, and grey) and I’m so here for it. This is a sweet, sad, and hopeful comic and I really, really loved it. I would recommend you pick it up if you’re at all into queer romances and slice-of-life/coming-of-age type stories with a focus on relationships and friendships. show less

I found this one on a “recommended” shelf in the library, so I finally decided to check it out. It’s funny how I was feeling so reluctant to read this one and kept pushing it lower and lower on my to-read list, but now can’t stop thinking about it!

Content warnings:
- abortion
- unhealthy relationships
- cheating
- a Rromani stereotype

Representation:
- the protagonist is a half E. Asian lesbian
- the “love interest” is a lesbian, there are black wlw, there’s a black gay man & a gay/bi poc

Freddy Riley is in love with popular, charming, irresistible Laura Dean, but Laura Dean keeps breaking up with her. Freddy’s friends are sick of her talking about this off-and-on relationship and don’t know why she puts up with it. Seeking show more outside help, Freddy asks both the local fortune teller and the help of a local newspaper advice columnist -- and receives advice she doesn’t want. But with their words in her head and the support of new friends, Freddy learns how to get out of the rut and back on track with her life.

The first thing I have to say about this graphic novel is that it’s absolutely stunning. This art style is an instant favorite; there’s not one sloppy panel in here. Not one! There’s also gorgeous beats of time created by white/space or by the composition that adds a lot to the reading experience.

The story also has a lot of merit. We (as in wlw & mlm) often exasperatedly poke fun at how m/f relationships are sometimes defined by being unbalanced, but we do need to recognize that our own relationships can be very messy. And unhealthy. It’s a side of our adolescence that doesn’t really get portrayed often (unless it's in stereotypes).

And it’s funny -- I was just saying the other day that it’s a shame gay/bi men get to have messy storylines in any kind of fantasy & sci-fi context and get to do all sorts of things … but wlw, we’re kind of stuck right now where most of our content is either made up of tragedies or chaste period pieces (where both women are white). So it’s really nice this graphic novel got as popular as it did! Though not fantasy/sci-fi, it explores the messier side of wlw relationships.

However, as much as I enjoyed it -- a lot; I stayed up incredibly late to finish it -- it has major flaws. My biggest gripe with it is the fortune teller … her design makes it obvious she’s Rromani, and that’s … not great. It’s an awful, horrible stereotype that should’ve never been in here. It should be obvious by now that this isn’t okay to do.

The novel also tries to take on more than it can handle with Doodle’s (Freddy’s best friend) side plot. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an important topic! But I don’t think it’s one the graphic novel was able to handle well in the page time it had. Especially with all of the drama Freddy was going through.

But what the graphic novel does right -- capturing the importance of friendship, selling the idea that you shouldn’t feel the need to “settle” for what you’ve got (especially important when you’re young and dating someone more popular, more pretty, more anything than you), and explaining how your relationships should never take anything away from you -- it does really, really well. show less

This review can also be found on my blog.

This was an amazing graphic novel that absolutely blew me away. Similar to but lighter than In the Dream House, this does an incredible job at demonstrating that queer relationships can also be toxic and abusive, which is imperative for lgbtq youth to be aware of. I really loved Freddy's character and her friend group, which felt so real and relatable. I just wish we had seen some more of her friends! Laura Dean clearly has no idea what she's doing wrong, which I think is unfortunately often the way of some abusers. The art itself is absolutely stunning and I was blown away by it from the start. This is a really incredible book that I'll absolutely be trying to get others to read.

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Mainly this is a very funny and humane story about teen heartache and friendship, but before getting to that, I'll say that it's also an unusually good pairing of art style and narrative style—and I don't just mean "North American kids these days like some manga in their comics." The delicate but strongly designed art does have a clear manga influence, and part of that is that Valero-O'Connell takes her time: this is a big book but not a dense one, so a brief interaction or a quiet moment could unfold over several pages to let you see it from all sides. That's appropriate to the story, because what happens is pretty simple—our hero Freddie finally accepts what all of her friends already know, that this thing with Laura can never show more work—but the story is also about everyone around her, and all the false starts it takes her to finally get there; if finding her own way was something that would fit in fewer panels, she would've already done it.

This is a wordier and busier book than This One Summer (the only other Tamaki book I've read, also great) but nothing feels crowded or overblown. The one dramatically teenage thing Freddie does, her first misguided attempt to push back at Laura, is presented as not the huge event she'd like it to be but just one more awkward moment for everyone concerned. Even the ugly fight that we know we'll eventually see, by the time it happens, is more like the final bump of a plane landing, confirming where we've arrived, rather than a crash.

That's also when Tamaki finally gives us the follow-through to the narrative device that starts the book—Freddie writing to an advice columnist, although she's not sure if this older woman gives advice to lesbians—and the answer is both redundant and just right. A noticeable feature of Freddie's world is that in many ways it's far freer and kinder than what an older reader like me might remember from high school: her friends aren't sorted ethnically, and queer relationships seem mostly taken for granted (although we can tell that this isn't the same for everyone); sex in general is also taken for granted, except inasmuch as it's part of the scary intensity of being in love. Freddie is somewhat aware that she's living in a transitional time in America where the social rules aren't quite clear, and teenagers may not agree with rules but they do want to have some idea what they are, and how to distinguish their own special problems from universal ones. I don't really know how this will read to someone her age, but to me it's beautifully written, both subtle and down to earth.

One area where I wasn't sure where the book was going for quite a while was the title character. Would this careless, self-centered cool kid ever drop her mask (almost literally a mask: her face is stylized a little differently than the rest, with emptier eyes) and feel as human as the other characters? Yes and no: while Laura is believable as a type of person you may have known, ultimately there isn't much to her and that's OK since this isn't her story. It's important for Freddie to learn what's really been going on with her friends in some cases, but in this case part of the message is that you don't need to fully understand someone to know that you've been trying too hard. show less

God. I hate Laura Dean. The author and illustrator brought to life the Laura Dean character that many of us may have encountered in our lives. Selfish, narcissistic, manipulative, demanding, emotionally abusive.

Man. This brought me back to my younger self of the days of having to break those relationships, both romantic and platonic, to find my own happiness and strength without that toxicity.

This story captured the tumultuous experience of youth and young adulthood perfectly, entering the phase of understanding who we are, our own self-worth, and what type of relationships we want to be in that value us as equal partners.

The artwork was beautiful and the story empowering, especially seeing the representation in the queer community.

I show more felt a connection to Freddy and rooted for her throughout. A perfect standalone that allows the reader to imagine for themselves the future of all the characters. show less

I've been in love with a girl named Laura Dean.

And it's the hardest thing I've ever been.

I'm just amazed. The composition of every frame is unbelievable in this book - each brings such a specific tone that gives the simplest 'Hey' layers and layers of emotion and context and reverberation through the story.

This was like getting constantly punched in the gut. I've been both the Doodle and the Freddy to some degree, and so some parts of this really got to me. It's easy to be a good friend, but it's very hard to see when you're failing to do so.

Sad, but hopeful and warm and beautiful too :')