I grabbed this adorable YA graphic novel from my library on impulse back in late January. They were already gearing up for Valentine’s Day and had a whole display up of romance books and this was one of them.
I’m not sure what it was about this graphic novel by Colleen AF Venable and Ellen T. Crenshaw that drew my attention, but I’m so glad I ended up bringing it home with me.
The book is about a teenager named Amanda who’s growing up in a conservative, Christian family and neighborhood. She goes to a private Christian school, goes to church with her parents every Sunday, and most of her friends go to church, too. She’s kissed several boys at this point, but they’ve all been mediocre at best.
The book opens with Amanda listing all of the boys she’s kissed so far, along with their disappointing performances, and then opens to a full-page drawing of the titular “kiss number 8”, which just happens to be in a car with her friend Laura … and Amanda’s dad watching from their living room window. Laura says it’s best if Amanda were to leave, Amanda does, and then the story backtracks by a kiss or two when Amanda and Laura aren’t even that close.
Amanda’s best friend, Cat, is kind of a wild child. Her dad isn’t around and her mom doesn’t pay much attention to her, so she does what she wants: smoking, drinking, partying at all hours of the night and at least making out with boys if not more.
Laura is at the other end of the spectrum: the churchgoer from the stable home who volunteers at the church on Saturdays, doesn’t go out partying, tries to warn Amanda against doing so, and general goody-two-shoes and rule follower.
Cat doesn’t like Laura because they’re pretty much polar opposites of each other, so she dismisses, belittles, and tries to exclude Laura every chance she gets. Amanda tends to go along with it because she’s enthralled by Cat.
As it turns out, Amanda is somewhat more than just enamored of Cat – she has a full-on crush. She might even be in love. This becomes pretty obvious to the reader fairly early on (and not just because the book opens on Amanda kissing another girl), but Amanda is pretty firmly in denial. When another character sees the way Amanda is staring at Cat while kissing a boy, she accidentally lets slip a comment about Amanda’s sexuality, not realizing she’s outing someone who hasn’t even come out to herself.
But you can’t stop the rumor mill. Cat hears about it. Laura and her brother hear about it. Pretty much everyone at school hears about it, and when kids start teasing Amanda about it at a party, things come to a head. Amanda decides to have sex with Laura’s brother as a way to see if she’s really gay. It’s a pretty shitty thing to do because she knows he’s in love with her, but teenagers can be cruel at the best of times and this is certainly not Amanda at her best.
Afterwards, Laura gives Amanda a ride home from the party, and that’s when the kiss happens that we saw at the beginning of the story.
So, Amanda is gay and she’s unwillingly out and her dad won’t talk to her since he saw her kiss another girl. Her dad had previously been her best friend and Amanda hadn’t wanted anything to do with her mom, but when her dad stops talking to her, her mom is there for her and they start to bond.
While all of this is going on, Amanda finds out about her paternal grandmother – her real paternal grandmother, Sam.
It turns out the woman she grew up with as her paternal grandmother is not her biological grandmother at all. Her biological grandmother was a transgender man whose husband beat her almost to death when he found out. Sam had been living not too far away from Amanda and her family with her partner until she died right before the story started.
My favorite part of this book was the way it dealt with people’s faulty memories or outright lies. Amanda’s dad remembers his mom just up and leaving – choosing her “lifestyle” over the family. While he’s saying this, Crenshaw includes drawings of him as a boy laughing with his mom after she put on facial hair and cowering with her as his dad’s shadow looms over them.
His stepmother tells Amanda she did the best she could to put the pieces of the family back together after Sam “left”, while the drawings show pre-transition Sam walking in on her having sex with Sam’s husband.
Don’t worry, the book has a happy ending. Although Amanda never gets to meet Sam because the events of the book take place right after she dies, Amanda does get to know Sam’s partner. Her dad comes around to Amanda’s sexuality, but never manages to muster up the courage to meet Sam’s partner. I don’t really blame him since he was basically brainwashed from the time he was very young to be biased against Sam.
The last few pages are a series of Amanda’s next kisses, and some of them are men, so I guess she’s less gay and more bisexual. The last few pictures are all of the same woman, implying she stuck around and she and Amanda get to live happily ever after.
What did you read this week? Any other graphic novels you picked up on impulse and ended up really enjoying?