Reviews with content warning for Sexism - Cheer Up! Love and Pompoms

This was one of my most anticipated reads for the year and I am not disappointed. This comic is an adorable, lighthearted but realistic romance between a grumpy goth lesbian and a sunshine-y, pushover trans girl. It's super fast passed (I read it in an hour or so), but there's so much characterization and character development within the small story. Even though it's generally lighthearted, it's also realistic with microaggressions, familial problems, and sexual harassment. It's also super funny (I laughed out loud multiple times) and the art is so cute and fits perfect with the story. There's less actual cheerleading than I hoped and I wished we saw more of Annie's mom because she was an amazing character, which these things could be fixed if this (fingers crossed) becomes a series. This is an amazing comic for someone who wants girls supporting girls, sapphic romance, and a queer women led sports comic. I highly recommend!

I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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heytherekaity's review

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emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted fast-paced

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

5.0

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pseudoliterature's review

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emotional funny informative inspiring lighthearted reflective tense

4.5

This is such a lovely story! it deals with some good conversations about the transitioning experience, microaggressions, hurtful overprotection of parents, performative allyship and how more often than not it blatantly ignores the voices of the people who are trying to <i>just exist</i>.

I would've loved to see more discussions and development in page about transphobic comments made by the friends of the protagonist, they were never openly addressed in the story which made it feel a little bit rush within the conflict resolution part of it, but I do like how obvious they were on page, and how they show the shallowness of their allyship.

Pretty good story in general, a bit rushed for all what intended to do, but I do appreciate what it did.

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that_bookworm_guy's review

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hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-paced

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

5.0

This graphic novel is everything I could have wanted and so much more!!

The characters are brilliant and so loveable.

As a trans person, I related a lot to BeeBee and I absolutely adored the representation in this book. She’s really well done and is honestly my favourite character,

Annie is a smart, plus sized lesbian who joins the cheer squad to be more social. She is a brilliant character who isn’t afraid to call out micro aggressions aimed at BeeBee.

Together the grow closer as BeeBee helps Annie with cheerleading and Annie helps BeeBee with history. But they end up helping each other with so much more

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