Heart rates are monitored, sleep is modified to keep everyone sped up, hyped up, and distracted.Īngela is a rebel and, as rebels often do, she finds herself in a literal underground community that values slowing down and is attempting to disrupt the hyper-commercialism, speed driven society. This active and distracted life results in less time spent digesting what they consume – both mentally and physically. This hyper existence is punctuated by short bursts of dialogue with each speaker signaling the end of an idea with “GO!”. Movies last 15 minutes and are positively reviewed as hyper! Quick isn’t good enough, things have to be fastest! Literature is reduced to “brief lit”. Angela, the 15-year-old protagonist, looks similar to Aliera from Foiled.Īngela lives in a future that values speed above all else. On the other side, there are people in riot gear, attack dogs, and a young man getting arrested.įor those who have read Jane Yolen’s Foiled! and Curses! Foiled, Again!! you might recognize Mike Cavallaro’s illustrations. On the left, three people are holding long knives and looking determined, above their heads are hands grasping something between thumb and for-finger. The young women are flanked by much more violent images that make up a slightly recessed background and are colored in a darker blue. There is what looks like a human heart in the center, with two young women facing each other, touching foreheads, in an embrace. If you are looking for a graphic novel that breaks from these expected tropes don’t bother with Decelerate Blue. We are all products of a homophobic, racist, and misogynistic society so these tropes are hard to recognize and even harder to de-colonize from our minds. So, yeah, I came of age when the bar for LGBTQ representation is pretty low. It was rare to see any representation of LGBTQ folks existing in media and when we did make it to the page or the screen there were a few, consistent tropes: we were single and funny, a murderer, crazy and destined for some institution, or dead (sometimes combos). Discovering #ownstories published by small presses and sold out of lesbian bookstores that smelled of candles, hemp, and essential oil, sold non-ironic macramé, and specialized in the production of purple clothing was a rite of passage. I swooned when the Bionic man kissed the Bionic Woman – not because I wanted to BE him, but I sure as hell wanted to kiss her.Ĭonstantly searching for signs of LGBTQ life, characters, and yes, even romance was a constant. I grew up expecting NOT to see my stories, but always in the lookout. I have been gay since before I knew what it meant to be a lesbian. I have always looked White and been Latinx. Truisms about myself that I take for granted.
There are a few consistencies in my life. I use the term Booktoss as a way to communicate to the Literary Gatekeepers that we need to be willing to see the problems with books and toss some of them aside.ĭecelerate Blue by Adam Rapp and Mike Cavallaro
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