Review: Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamki & Rosemary Velero-O'Connell

A toxic relationship is at the very heart of this LGBTQI+ graphic novel. Freddy Riley is learning the hard way that love hurts. All she wants, more than anything, is to have a meaningful relationship with her girlfriend, Laura Dean, who she loves more than anything. But Laura Dean likes to live life on her terms, and doesn't seem to understand how her actions and choices can hurt the people around her, especially Freddy. The pair break up after Laura Dean cheats on her, and Freddy finds herself searching for answers. Her search continues as she and Laura Dean get back together again, and she neglects her best friend Doodle, who is going through some pretty heavy duty struggles of her own. Eventually, Freddy realises what she needs to do, and how she deserves to be treated.

This was a compelling read, one that provides readers with some insight into the nature of toxic relationships. Laura Dean is portrayed as being selfish to the point where she truly cannot comprehend how her behaviour affects others. And this is Freddy's story of how she learns to stop giving herself false hope and the courage to walk away. The illustrations are absolutely beautiful, and brave in places.

The novel has a couple of dark spots--first of all, the ending. It's great that Freddy found someone who not only understands her, but who respects her as well, however, I felt that it all came about a bit too conveniently and that it took something away from themes of the importance of always being there for a friend. Then there is a subplot where a major character who is below the age of consent finds herself pregnant to a married man. While the authors are at pains to point out that the particular character shouldn't be judged for her choices, what they do not make clear to the reader is that the character has been taken advantage of (whether or not she consented is a moot point, given her age--and in any case, age of consent laws exist to protect children from exploitation and from making poor decisions due to immaturity.) It is never named as sexual abuse and the abuser suffers no consequences for his actions, while she suffers through an abortion with the support of a friend, while her emotionally distant father looks on. And there's not a great deal of resolution afterward, the story moves forward to be more about Freddy and her rotten relationship with Laura Dean.

Many readers have enjoyed this one, and parts of it are done well. Ultimately, however, I found Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me was let down by the ending and the clumsy handling of a serious subject.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peppermint Patty: I Cried and Cried and Cried

Image
Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean
Read more

Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt and the Football

Image
One of the longest, and arguably, most infuriating, running gags in Charles Schulz's otherwise brilliant Peanuts comic strip, is where Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown and then pulls it away at the last minute, causing Charlie Brown to fall flat on his back. A typical strip looks like this: Source: Go Comics The gag is one of the darker themes in the strip. It works on the concept that every year, Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown. Every year, Charlie Brown is initially filled with doubt but is eventually pushed on by a kind of optimism that perhaps, this time, Lucy might just let him kick it after all. As a metaphor for life, it is pretty simple. It talks of the moments when we choose to put our trust in people who have let us down only to be taken by surprise when they let us down, again. Lucy is, arguably, one of the crueller characters in the comic. Described as crabby by the other characters, she is often selfish, takes delight in wilfully hu
Read more

Phrases and Idioms: Tickets on Himself

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A
Read more