Title: Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with MeAuthor: Mariko Tamaki, Rosemary Valero-O'Connell
First Published: May 7, 2019
Publisher: First Second
Pages: 304
Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQ, Young Adult
Format: Paperback
Source: Library
Rating:
Synopsis:
Author Mariko Tamaki and illustrator Rosemary Valero-O’Connell bring to life a sweet and spirited tale of young love in Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, a graphic novel that asks us to consider what happens when we ditch the toxic relationships we crave to embrace the healthy ones we need.
Laura Dean, the most popular girl in high school, was Frederica Riley's dream girl: charming, confident, and SO cute. There's just one problem: Laura Dean is maybe not the greatest girlfriend.
Reeling from her latest break up, Freddy's best friend, Doodle, introduces her to the Seek-Her, a mysterious medium, who leaves Freddy some cryptic parting words: break up with her. But Laura Dean keeps coming back, and as their relationship spirals further out of her control, Freddy has to wonder if it's really Laura Dean that's the problem. Maybe it's Freddy, who is rapidly losing her friends, including Doodle, who needs her now more than ever.
Fortunately for Freddy, there are new friends, and the insight of advice columnists like Anna Vice to help her through being a teenager in love.
Buy the Book: AmazonReview
Why did I sleep on this graphic novel!? I absolutely positively LOVED it! It hit me in a profound way and brought me back to my youth before I learned how to cut people off for my mental health. Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me is about toxic relationships, what it does to us mentally and emotionally, and the disastrous impact that it can have on a young person’s sense of self-worth. Mariko Tamaki just gets it.
The characters in this graphic novel are so colorful and so fun, they were the kinds of people that I would want to be friends with. I could relate to Freddy’s desperate desire to be loved by the person she cared most about, even to the point of neglecting herself and the people around her. I appreciated that the book highlighted the importance of loving and taking care of yourself and the painful realization that there are people that don’t love you the way that you deserve. How our energy is better spent caring for the hearts of those that care for us.
I got teary-eyed reading this graphic novel because it made me think of my own life and my friends. It was wonderful, it was beautiful, and it was a book that I needed.
Quote
“It’s also true that you can break up with someone you still love. Because those two things are not distinct territories: love and not loving anymore.”
Content Warnings
View Spoiler »About the Authors
About Mariko Tamaki
Mariko Tamaki is a Toronto writer, playwright, activist and performer. She works and performs with fat activists Pretty Porky and Pissed Off and the theatre troupe TOA, whose recent play, A vs. B, was staged at the 2004 Rhubarb Festival at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Her well-received novel, Cover Me (McGilligan Books) was followed by a short fiction collection, True Lies: The Book of Bad Advice (Women’s Press). Mariko’s third book, FAKE ID, is due out in spring 2005.
Mariko Tamaki has performed her work across Canada and through the States, recently appearing at the Calgary Folkfest 2004, Vancouver Writer’s Festival 2003, Spatial III, and the Perpetual Motion/Girls Bite Back Tour, which circled though Ottawa, Montreal, Brooklyn and Chicago. She has appeared widely on radio and television including First Person Singular on CBC radio and Imprint on TVO. Mariko Tamaki is currently attending York University working a master’s degree in women’s studies.
About Rosemary Valero-O’Connell
Rosemary Valero-O’Connell is a Minneapolis born, Zaragoza raised cartoonist and illustrator with a BFA in Comic Art from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (’16)
She’s done work for DC Comics (Gotham Academy, Vertigo Quarterly), BOOM! Studios (Lumberjanes, Steven Universe), CAPY games (OK KO!: Let’s Be Heroes), Mondo Tees, Kazoo Magazine, and The City Pages, among others. Her work has been shown in galleries both locally and internationally (Gowanus Print Lab, Roq La Rue Gallery, Telegraph Gallery, etc). She’s currently working on a graphic novel with award-winning author Mariko Tamaki for First Second called Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me, to be released in 2019. She’s a proud member of the Out Of Step Arts collective, has been recognized by the Society of Illustrators NY, and won her second grade spelling bee by spelling the word ‘human’.
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