I often think that, as a bibliomaniac I have read every possible iteration of the seven plots, or whatever (five, eight, doesn’t matter.) Sometimes, it is very true that a story is similar enough to another that it feels familiar and many of the beats are similar, such as Rock Is A Lady’s Modesty and, say Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games. But every once in a while, I am wholly blindsided. My favorite example of that is Fingersmith by Sarah Waters which gobbed my smack a full three times. Today I want to talk about another book that just blew my expectations away. And in such a simple way that I had to laugh.

Heaven, by Katie Skelly, is just such a book.

Dolly is a student in a small town. Although the other girls include her, she simply doesn’t feel part of their group. Is it the braces she still wears, or that she’s Asian or just different from the other girls? She doesn’t know. But when they all drive to the edge of town to the strip bar, Heaven, which has a murky reputation, Dolly is sent to try and get in to see what the place looks like. 

Instead, Dolly tries to get a job.

She’s rejected because whatever she says, the braces will make her age suspect, so Dolly goes home and cuts them off. Freed of them (and beginning to shed her old self,) Dolly goes back and does get a job at Heaven!

Now, with a job, she leaves the other girls behind, entering a particularly specific part of adult life while largely having skipped over adolescence. Heaven’s reputation seems to be justified, something weird is going on, but… When we learn the secret, I promise you it is not at all any of the things you might have suspected. ^_^ The truth about Heaven is that it is a very specific kind of hell.

The art here is very American indie comic, with framing and color work that starts with you as removed as Dolly and ends up with you very much in the middle of it all. The pacing is steady, for a climax that, as I said, made me guffaw.

This is a story about a young woman finding her way to herself, via an unusual route, and with some unexpected circumstances. Because Heaven is a strip bar, we walk through the door with expectations, but Skelly upends those with a story that does not stick to tropes.

To be clear, this is not Yuri at all. I sometimes review not-Yuri things here too! It is a story about a young woman finding herself in an unforeseen situation and just having to figure it, and herself out.

Ratings: 

Art – 7 Your mileage may vary. I found it fun and approachable
Story – 9 Bildungsdroman for the modern age, by leaning into a previous one
Characters – 8 We watch over Dolly carefully
Service – It’s a strip club, so no service, just grunge

Overall – 9

Thanks so much to Fantagraphics Books for the review copy. This a wild, well-told fable of young womanhood.

Dolly’s just a normal school girl
With a mouth full of braces, no curls
Dissociated with her life
Dolly doesn’t seek strife
She ends up at Heaven as one of the pearls

In Tamsyn Muir’s The Locked Tomb series’, Gideon The Ninth we are first introduced to a young woman named Gideon who has spend her entire life abused, rejected and trained to be a fighter well beyond normal humans. 

The Cold Ever After written by Jeremy Whitley (Navigating With You) and illustrated by Megan Huang  has a similar premise, only we meet the protagonist long after everything has gone to shit. Sir Noelani Mahi’ai was a young girl chosen to be the Holy Champion. Her teacher was an abusive fucker who did everything in the name of his god. Like Gideon, Noelani survived and grew stronger out of necessity. Eventually she and young Queen Isadora fell in love. When the Queen had a child with the often-absent king, the two of them raised the new princess as their own. But there was no happily ever after for them, and Noelani was set-up, exiled and, she hoped, forgotten. Now Noelani has been called back by Queen Isadora, to find the missing princess, their daughter.

I compare this to Gideon the Ninth because, like that protagonist, Noelani is despised by the people around her, who fear and need her. She is raised in violence, and lives in despair, but keeps fighting. Folks that liked Gideon, but wanted it to be a bit more grim, or take itself a bit more seriously, might find what they want in this story. 

To be honest, I found it a hard read. Not because it was badly written, but because it was unremitting from beginning to end. There are no good people, bad decisions are made for bad reasons, all the men in the story are appalling and the bad guy, as it were, is both obvious and tiring. Reading this, I was reminded why Shakespeare had comic relief in his plays, no matter how dire they seem now. You just need to sometimes breathe. 

But again, if you loved the grit, violence and horror of Gideon and hoped for even more with a very human, but more selfish outcome, you might genuinely enjoy The Cold Ever After.

Ratings: 

Art – 7 It is often on the cusp of being really good or really bad in places
Story – 7 Same as above
Characters – 7 There are no good people, but there are people who might have been good, but could not be
Service – 4 Some nudity
Lesbian – 10

Overall – For me this was a not a high score, maybe a 5, but I can totally imagine for the right audience, it would be significantly higher.

Lydia Chen is driven. She’s driven to be the absolute best female skater in the world, and she doesn’t really care who gets hurt in the process. When Elaine Yee begins to seriously be a rival for the top spot, it throws Lydia into a downward spiral that will call into question everything she believes…by making her realize she doesn’t really believe in anything at all, not even herself. Elaine just wants to be friends, Lydia just wants to be left alone to skate. Their rivalry will push them both past a breaking point where they will have to find something to hold on to.

Just Between Us, Adeline Kon’s sapphic ice skating story landed on my feed just as Alyssa Liu was completing her own redemption arc at the Olympics in what is the finest women’s free skate performance I have ever seen in my life. It seemed kismet, as I’m always hoping for a good Yuri rivals-to-lovers sports story. Just Between Us is not exactly what I am looking for, but it is very good.

To begin with Lydia and Elaine are both in theirs 20s but Lydia, especially, comes off as extremely immature. After a decade of competing, her inability to grow from loss felt very childish. This works well, if the story you want is athletes struggling with inner demons. Lydia’s inner demons have been winning for a very long time when we meet her. Elaine is a bit more sympathetic, as her struggles have not served to twist her. She holds her hand out over and over to Lydia. It isn’t until a common enemy appears that Lydia suddenly realizes that she’s the problem here.

If you are looking for a rivals to lovers story driven by deep emotions, delving into family obligations, scandal and expectations, you will love this book.

The art is really expressive. I especially loved the different-colored patterns of skating and the stop motion graphs of the jumps. It felt very much like a book with its hands thrust right into the foundations of woman’s competitive ice skating. The font size is occasionally small, but the art is worth it.

While I was hoping for a story in which the competition itself took the place of the tension between them, I do genuinely believe this is a solid book about athletes, competitive pressure and finding both ones’ self and love in that world.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Service – 0
Yuri – 10
LGBTQ – 9

Overall – 8

The cover is the best example of this, but there is a very Odile/Odette vibe between these two skaters, in the sense of a story I wrote a long time ago. I thought the costuming choice was a good one.