Reviews with content warning for Racism - Squad

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

43 reviews

nmcannon's review

dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

While a sapphic werewolf romance comic is totally my wheelhouse, my impetus to pick up Squad was that our sapphic book club wanted to read it. This Mean Girls meets Ginger Snaps feminist roar of a tale was much lauded last year, even snagging a nomination for a GoodReads Choice Award. I was prepared to be impressed. And I was!

When Becca transfers to an elite, mostly white high school in Northern California, she dreads the usual new-kid struggles. But on her first day, she catches the eye of the beautiful blonde Marley. Their first interaction is Becca giving Marley a tampon, which I thought was a great detail. Marley introduces Becca to the Plastics the it girl crowd, who, turns out, are werewolves. Every month on the full moon, they must consume flesh, or they’ll frenzy from hunger and/or lose “luster” (think Jennifer’s Body lore). They have rules to keep their murder rationalized, such as be pretty, be smart, no personal boyfriends, only devour would-be rapists, and leave alive anyone from their school. When these rules are snapped, the true horror begins.

The art is stunning. Color splashes and floats across the page. Sterle’s work easily keeps up with the vacillation between pink-tinged charm and blood-drenched gore. A lot of reviews mention different comparative titles. All are helpful and true, because Squad pays dark, touching homage to many a horror story. Squad’s plot is a gorgeous, barbaric scream against rape culture and patriarchy—and a reminder that we cannot only scream. The ending reminded me of second wave feminism receding and returning as third wave feminism. While it’s cathartic as all get out to viciously dismember the future Brett Kavanaugh’s of the world, to cry and call for leaving men behind altogether, that’s not realistic. Such movements leave behind people at other intersections of identity. For example, Becca doesn’t feel safe coming out to her “sisters,” and Amanda is belittled and not called her preferred name.

If I had to nitpick, my book club’s suspension of disbelief didn’t stretch quite far enough at times. We wondered at the logistics of a devouring a whole teenage boy, clothes and all. We wondered how a fuss hadn’t been kicked up yet. In real life, my college campus was basically shut down after a death, with massive protests, calls for reform, and investigations. It was hard to imagine these repeated, semi-localized deaths/disappearances would remain under the radar for so long.

Overall, Squad is a bloody good comic. Read it to sharpen your fangs.

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saltylane's review

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adventurous dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Without thinking too critically about it, I can say I rather liked this book! I enjoyed the different characters, though I wish they’d gotten a bit more of actual development and growth. Either way, femme lovers and supernatural beasties are totally up my alley.

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booksthatburn's review against another edition

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adventurous tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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alyssamakesart's review

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

What is promoted is pretty spot on. Messy/Grey plot and discussion of rape culture, internalized misogyny, etc were solid and nuanced. The book felt campy a lot in a cute, nostalgic way. Art was stunning.

SPOILERS

(-.25) Name of people to real life predators and rapist made sense, but also didn’t like. Maybe first names, but not lasts. Except queen b because that shit was funny.

(-.5) Class: Glossed over class dynamics in the men they choose except in short discussions about alphas boyfriend. Like the fact that they were dating was more important for plot at expense of seeing the other lost boys/men - specifically the one that was too far. Class was only discussed regarding women (her mom, Queen B, Thatcher, etc.)

(-1) Race: I love the sapphic love, it was slowly built and cute but I can’t get over the fact they came from the biggest micro-aggression perpetrator?? And it was left 100% unaddressed. I’m kinda uncomfortable about how the two black leads (Amanda and the teacher) were portrayed. Like Amanda was played as kinda sassy even though she was like almost always right?!?

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snowwhitehatesapples's review

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

A graphic novel with pretty art, lovely typography and sapphic rep which I completely adore, Squad is exactly as pitched: Pretty Little Liars meets Teen Wolf.

That said, it's expected that the plot's predictable and the characters are stereotypical. The stance the girls of the Squad have on patriarchy is an understandable one. Although their method of bringing the patriarchy down isn't commendable, it can't be denied that sometimes, we just want the other to feel as much or more pain than what we've been subjected to. Of course, that can't happen in real life so here we have girls going wild in a fictional world doing so. Nevertheless, I have to agree that smashing patriarchy via murder doesn't give a great message. Additionally, there comes to a point in the story where the main focus of taking action against toxic masculinity goes off elsewhere when the sisterhood gets challenged.

Other than that, there are tropes and prejudice (microaggressions) in this graphic novel that remains unchallenged or not subverted. I would've loved to see them being challenged or subverted but again, that's not unexpected—particularly when you keep how it's pitched as in mind.

Anyway, the main problem I had with Squad is how there are moments between panels that have been skipped. Maybe I'm too used to reading manga where a lot of details and actions are included to create a very cohesive story, but yeah, the story got confusing for me at certain parts and they took a few rereads for me to connect the dots.

Everything considered, there is so much potential in this graphic novel. I think Squad would've been better as a series with multiple volumes so that more aspects could be expanded on and better fleshed out. Still, it's a fun and quick read as it is!

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