#rosemary Valero-O’Connell

[the-rainbow-suit-dude]

Loving my WLW graphic novels rn ;P

[remyreadsrandomly]

i have a subtle queer book find!!!!

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking up with Me by Mariko Tamaki & Rosemary Valero-O’Connell

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking up with Me is a ya graphic novel with a ton of charm and beautiful art.

i found this in my local library, and i put off reading it since i thought it was straight, but i was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t. the story focuses on a high schooler named Freddy, and her up and down romance with Laura Dean. i’m going to try to keep this spoiler free, but i just want to say that the ending of the book was amazing. i was shocked by reveal, and i couldn’t put it down.

also a major perk of this book is that the cover is straight-passing, (but the back is not, having quotes of people talking about it featuring lgbtqia+ characters).

all in all, great read for any person who loves queer books and/or graphic novels that focus on relationships.

[neutron669]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle

by Rosemary Valero-O’Connell

[beyondthespheres]

Hello world...

from What Is Left by Rosemary Valero-O’Connell

[crowfeathers]

I just read the free comic I got from the comic fair on saturday, right before bed. that shit? Hurted

[tradewaiters]

Join Jam, Jeff, and JD for another episode of the TradeWaiters. This time we read Roaming by Canadian paragons of cartooning Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki. It’s a story of three young women visiting New York and discovering themselves, and in true Tamaki fashion, pushes the medium of comics to its limits. We’ll discuss our own adventures, the genre of comics that I GUESS we’re officially calling “mumble-core” now, and also the “Darryl Ayo method” of how the comics industry should work.

Also mentioned in this episode: Skim and This One Summer also by Jillian Tamaki & Mariko Tamaki Super Mutant Magic Academy and Boundless by Jillian Tamaki Emiko Superstar by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Rolston Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell The Sculptor by Scott McCloud Witch Hat Aetelier by Kamome Shirahama Old Caves by Tyler Landry The Sopranos by David Chase The Boys by Eric Kripke Disco Elysium published by ZA/UM Gundam created by Yoshiyuki Tomino and Sunrise and the Canadian cartoonist stamps

Music by Sleuth

You can find us at: J Dalton Jam Jeff Ellis

Our next episode will be on My Aunt Is a Monster by Reimena Yee

You can also follow the TradeWaiters on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, and Ko-Fi.

[smashpages]

The Whisper Queen #1 (Image, May 2024) variant cover by Rosemary Valero-O’Connell

[postcambrian]

book post

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien

Don’t Go Without Me by Rosemary Valero-O’Connell (comic)

I See a Knight by Xulia Vicente (comic)

Moving by Luis Yang (comic)

Temple by Jack T Cole (comic)

Temeraire/His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik

Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

[the-merry-librarian]

            Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me is a bittersweet, beautiful graphic novel about being a teenager in love with someone who can’t seem to stop breaking your heart. The novel follows Freddy Riley, a young lesbian on the cusp of adulthood, navigating her relationship with her friends, her family, and her on-and-off-again girlfriend Laura Dean, who’s broken up with her three times (even though it never, ever lasts). Though Laura Dean is certainly a queer book, its focus is on recognizing toxic relationships, making tough decisions, and the relatable experience of struggling in one’s first love.

Genre: Graphic Novel, Fiction, LGBTQIA+ (Michael L. Printz 2020 Honor Book)

Target Age Group:

14-18

Justification:

This novel has been on my to-read list for a long time, and I was delighted to find it on the Printz Honor list. The cover is marvelously eye-catching, and I confess I have a weakness for the color pink – it’s the only color used in the illustrations in the book. Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me was a must-read as soon as I found out about it.

Evaluation:

For this review, I will be evaluating the illustrations, characters, and theme. As a graphic novel, obviously, the illustrations are arguably the most important part, and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell’s fluid and precise art truly elevates the book to a new level. Characters’ expressions are subtle but expressive, with subtle details like freckles or changing earrings that give each character a lovely understated piece of personality. Pale pink is used throughout as an accent color, standing out starkly against black, white, or gray. Though most lettering throughout the novel is typewritten, Valero-O’Connell uses handwritten cursive script to emphasize dramatic dialogue, making the text stand out and yet integrating it overall into the soft, flowing style of the art. Mariko Tamaki, meanwhile, writes characters that shine. The protagonist, Freddy, is flawed and stubborn and insecure, and creative and hopeful and loving—all details provided by Tamaki’s carefully written dialogue, which combines with Valero-O’Connell’s illustrations to reveal character insights that prose alone might not have conveyed. Each character feels unique and realistic, with tiny details given that strengthen our impressions of each character: Laura Dean’s mother is never shown, Freddy’s mother never took her father’s last name, Doodle’s father only refers to his child as Deirdre. These are the characters we see the least of in the story, but these small pieces of information give them a brilliant shape, enhancing our understanding of them as Freddy interacts (or doesn’t) with the adults in her life. The theme is perhaps the most important part, at least to me. Unlike other YA novels with queer themes, the theme of Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me is not inherently queer. Many novels in the same genre are focused on expressing the queer experience, either attempting to echo the experiences of queer teens or make their experiences more relatable and understandable to a non-queer audience, but Laura Dean’s theme is young, toxic love, and freeing oneself of those relationships. That is a theme that endures throughout sexualities and ages, and while homophobia and other queer issues do arise throughout the course of the novel, the focus is on a teenager’s experience with teenage life. It expands the queer experience beyond this is what we experience as queer people and into this is what we all experience, it just happens to be a queer story on top of it all. In short, everyone should read this book. Teens going through heartbreak, teens who feel like no one’s had the same experience, adults who have dealt or are dealing with toxic relationships, anyone who loves beautiful art. Laura Dean is a book I’m going to be thinking about for a long time.

References:

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me. Macmillan Publishers. (2021, July 20). https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626722590/lauradeankeepsbreakingupwithme Tamaki, M., & Valero-O’Connell, R. (2020). Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me. Groundwood Books.

[vandroid-helsing]

Best of 2022

as always, this is stuff I loved in 2022, not necessarily stuff that came out in 2022 (in fact, it's mostly not!). and there'll be a more detailed post on Patreon.

BOOKS & COMICS

Squire, Sara Alfageeh & Nadia Shammas

The Argonautika, Apollonius of Rhodes trans. Peter Green

Scout Is Not A Band Kid, Jade Armstrong

Bestiary Dark, Marianne Boruch

Antigonick, Anne Carson/Sophocles

Flint and Mirror, John Crowley

Devil House, John Darnielle

Universal Harvester, John Darnielle

Vita Nostra, Marina Dyachenko

The Hatch, Joe Fletcher

Averno, Louise Glück

Job: A New Verse Translation, Edward L. Greenstein

The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett

Heretics of Dune, Frank Herbert 

Iliad, Homer trans. Caroline Alexander 

Skin Folk, Nalo Hopkinson

Uzumaki, Junji Ito

Moon Witch, Spider King, Marlon James 

Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance, Fady Joudah

Ulysses, James Joyce

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, John le Carré

A Desolation Called Peace, Arkady Martine

Salt Fat Acid Heat, Samin Nosrat

The Bull from the Sea, Mary Renault

The Persian Boy, Mary Renault 

Normal People, Sally Rooney

Grief Sequence, Prageeta Sharma

A Frog in the Fall, Linnea Sterte 

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me, Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell

A Secret Vice, JRR Tolkien ed. Dimitra Fimi

MOVIES

Loser, Urzila Carlson

Everything Everywhere All At Once, Daniels 

Saint Maud, Rose Glass

Promare, Hiroyuki Imaishi

My Neighbor Totoro, Hayao Miyazaki

Withnail & I, Bruce Robinson

Jenny Slate: Stage Fright, Gillian Robinson

Demon Slayer, Haruo Sotozaki

Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky

Sk8 the Infinity, Hiroko Utumi

Barbarella, Roger Vadim

MUSIC

The Dream, alt-J

Renaissance, Beyoncé 

Hounds of Love, Kate Bush

“Lakes of Canada,” The Innocence Mission

The Loneliest Time, Carly Rae Jepsen

Dance Fever, Florence + the Machine

Mashrou' Leila, just like, in general

“Children of Light II”, Meg Myers

Leak 04-13, Jai Paul

Scheherazade, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Rostam & Sohrab, Loris Tjeknavorian

MISCELLANEOUS

Getting an agent

Homemade baba ghanoush 

Seeing Drawfee live

Attending Tristan und Isolde

The work of Salman Toor

Guesting on The Spouter-inn

[bookaddict24-7]

RECO OF THE WEEK!

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me by Mariko Tamaki & Rosemary Valero-O’Connell 

Synopsis: 

“All Freddy Riley wants is for Laura Dean to stop breaking up with her. The day they got together was the best one of Freddy's life, but nothing's made sense since. Laura Dean is popular, funny, and SO CUTE ... but she can be really thoughtless, even mean. Their on-again, off-again relationship has Freddy's head spinning — and Freddy's friends can't understand why she keeps going back. When Freddy consults the services of a local mystic, the mysterious Seek-Her, she isn't thrilled with the advice she receives. But something's got to give: Freddy's heart is breaking in slow motion, and she may be about to lose her very best friend as well as her last shred of self-respect. Fortunately for Freddy, there are new friends, and the insight of advice columnist Anna Vice, to help her through being a teenager in love. Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O'Connell bring to life a sweet and spirited tale of young love that asks us to consider what happens when we ditch the toxic relationships we crave to embrace the healthy ones we need.”

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Check out my review here.

Add this book to your TBR on Goodreads here.

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Have you read this book? Would you recommend it?

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Happy reading!

[daegusflwr]

One day I too will create a highly detailed and elegantly complicated illustration ~ Rosemary Valero-O’Connell you are my hero

two of my favorite illustrations from this year, both from Carmilla

[queeryalit]

LAURA DEAN KEEPS BREAKING UP WITH ME by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell 💔 Image Credit: Goodreads

“Polyamorous or monogamous, your love should be a thing that brings something to you. It's true that giving can be a part of love. But, contrary to popular belief, love should never take from you, Freddy.”

Freddy Riley is dating her dream girl... or is she? Laura Dean keeps breaking up with Freddy and their romance is starting to take over Freddy’s life - leading her to neglect her best friend who needs her support. When a mysterious medium tells Freddy to break up with Laura Dean, will she listen? Told in beautiful pink art, this graphic novel explores what is ultimately a toxic relationship. Too often in YA, we only see the relationships that work - or worse, we see toxic relationships romanticized. That makes this raw portrayal not only refreshing, but crucial. 

[graphicpolicy]

Check out Silver Sprocket's February releases!

Check out Silver Sprocket's February releases! #comics #comicbooks

Golden Record By Rosemary Valero-O’ConnellOn sale 02/15/23 Golden Record is a bilingual English/Spanish poetry magazine & autofiction chapbook lusciously written & illustrated by award-winning graphic novelist Rosemary Valero-O’Connell. It is an amalgamation of words & images brought together to become more than the sum of their parts, exploring the body as the site & host of all pleasure and…

[beyondthespheres]

Rosemary Valero-O’Connell

[stilljumpingback]

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mark Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O'Connell

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mark Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell

Genre | YA Contemporary Fiction Graphic Novel Page #s | 289Publishing Date | May 2019 All Freddy Riley wants is for Laura Dean to stop breaking up with her. The day they got together was the best one of Freddy’s life, but nothing’s made sense since. Laura Dean is popular, funny, and SO CUTE … but she can be really thoughtless, even mean. Their on-again, off-again relationship has Freddy’s head…