Deciding how to broach her feelings for Ada with her, someone from her past makes a reappearance; her old best friend Joan who moved to Hong Kong and then ghosted her is the last person Elsie expected to see in Oxford and they certainly have some catching up to do. With this range of ages, Cynthia So does a brilliant job of showing the generational gap when it comes to reactions to queerness in a way that manages to be both heartbreaking but beautifully hopeful all at the same time.

As an own voices reviewer; the family dynamics of an East Asian family were so unashamedly raw, this – not tokenism and harmful stereotypes – is the type of representation we need. For each donated book I get through Ko-fi, I donate one of my current books to make room and continue paying it forward. The fandom aspect also wasn't really my thing, and the importance of it in this book surprised me considering it wasn't mentioned in the summary, but this is a very minor personal issue and I think there's plenty of people who won't mind it. It was so refreshing to see, as it stepped away from the viewpoint books often get where there’s one queer person as the outlier, and everyone else is straight. luscious writing that leaves you aching with feelings, an ode to comics, storytelling, romance and fanfic, absolutely bursting with brilliant queer girls.An epic, evocative queer romance that is also a heartfelt love letter to comics and storytelling, So's gorgeous debut is about two girls separated by an ocean but united by their love for fan-fiction. There are so many identities wonderfully represented in this book, and it handles those questions: Am I feminine enough? So many important conversations about queerness, the gender binary and how it is influenced by your race/cultural background. A beautiful and intricately layered tale of friendship, fandom and finding yourself - I absolutely adored it.

At one point of the book, Joan explains how there isn't really any queer rep in Hong Kong and the effect this has on her homophobic dad. This book involving an estranged childhood friend who moved oceans away but then meeting each other again just to realize you're both queer and the Feelings(TM) You had for each other is NOT PLATONIC literally is me.This is a wonderful summer YA book with tons of amazing queer representation, a main character who's really into comics and lots of focus on family and friends.