SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: Summer 2021] Laura Dean Keeps Breaking up with Me
Someone in the house brought this home from the libary and I knew I’d be reading it too. I really like Mariko Tamaki and would read anything she wrote.
This story is about teen romance. It’s set in Berkeley and has one of the biggest LGBTQ+ casts I’ve seen in a long time. Since it’s set in Berkeley it’s not an issue, it’s common and cool. It was great to read that. I also like that she included a few segments about the earlier LGBTQ+ pioneers who made it safe for the younger generation to feel so safe.
The book opens with Freddy (Frederica) Riley writing to an advice columnist Anna Vice. We see Freddy at a dance with her friends, including her best friend Doodle I love when characters have names like that). Freddy is waiting for the titular Laura Dean to come to the dance.
Laura Dean is a tall, blonde, popular girl. Their meeting story is adorable and Laura Dean is immediately charming.
The dance is disappointing for Freddy because LD is so popular she flits around from person to person, spending no time with Freddy. Worse yet, Freddy catches LD kissing someone else as the dance ends.
What’s interesting to me is that I liked Freddy’s friends so much more than Freddy or LD. Doodle is an awesome character and she and Freddy used to do fun weird crafts together. But when Freddy is with LD she ignores Doodle. And what’s worse is that most of the time she blows of Doodle for LD only to be blown off by LD herself.
Laura Dean is the worst. She treats Freddy terribly and then comes by and acts as if it’s all cool and they’ll just have sex and things will be okay. And Freddy can’t get out of the loop.
Freddy makes friends with (another great character) Vi, a woman who works a thousand jobs. Their first encounter is when Freddy threw up in the bakery where Vi was working. Vi would have a hard time forgetting that. Vi is great and would probably make an awesome girlfriend for Freddy, except that that she’s waaay too old for Freddy (Vi is 18, Freddy is 16, ha).
Doodle is a great friend, even taking Freddy to a SeekHer (a fortune teller who gives okay advice).
But when something really important happens to Doodle, Freddy is too caught up in her own drama to help her best friend. Freddy has to choose. I mean sure Laura Dean has broken up with her three times in the last year, but they keep finding their way back to each other. Aren’t they meant to be?
The real question is doe Laura Dean make her happy?
Rosemary Valero-O’Connell illustrations are wonderful in the book. She has incredibly fine lines and soft details. Sometimes the pages look like prints from classic Japanese art. She uses only three colors and the pink works as perfect accents to the darks. I really enjoyed the look of the book.
I really enjoyed everything about this book, although I wish that Freddy’s friends were defined a little better earlier in the story. Doodle in particular. While the gender of the character doesn’t matter, in a story like this it makes a difference. I genuinely wasn’t sure if Doodle could be a love interest or not. Some of the other characters were totally fluid. Again in most stories it doesn’t matter and it’s pretty great that she didn’t feel like she had to, but when romance and sex are the main part of the story it’s kind of important to know who is a potential romance because that affects the interactions.
But things cleared up pretty easily and the story was a great read.
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