A review by evangeline_miller
Hot Comb by Ebony Flowers

3.5

Hot Comb, by Ebony Flowers, is a collection of short stories centered on the shared experience women of color have around hair. In some of the stories, hair forms a central plot presence, while in others, it serves as a mere backdrop to explore other themes, such as friendship, mental health, and loss. "Hot Comb," for example, tells a semi-autobiographical tale about a young girl named Ebony who is peer pressured by her friends to "do something" with her hair. Meaning, straighten it, and thereby conform to the Eurocentric beauty ideals in US society. In "Sisters and Daughters," two sisters, Latrice and Gina, reminisce about their childhood while Latrice does Gina's hair. Some stories are more successful than others, and the collection could have used some tighter editing, especially concerning the commercial-like interludes which felt out of place somehow. Overall, the panel-to-panel choices worked nicely to tell the stories, especially in "My Lil Sister Lena," where Flowers presents a series of panels each with a single hair strand to show how Lena has resorted to hair-pulling (trichotillomania). I liked this collection but at times felt distracted by the freehand style of the artwork and text.