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.

Decelerate Blue by Adam Rapp and Mike Cavallaro

There are a few consistencies in my life. Truisms about myself that I take for granted.  I have always looked White and been Latinx. I’ve always been really strong and fat. I have been gay since before I knew what it meant to be a lesbian. I grew up expecting NOT to see my stories, but always in the lookout. 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.

Constantly searching for signs of LGBTQ life, characters, and yes, even romance was a constant. 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. 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). And, overwhelmingly White.

So, yeah, I came of age when the bar for LGBTQ representation is pretty low.

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. If you are looking for a graphic novel that breaks from these expected tropes don’t bother with Decelerate Blue.

To be honest, it looks promising. The cover is a study of blues. There is what looks like a human heart in the center, with two young women facing each other, touching foreheads, in an embrace. The young women are flanked by much more violent images that make up a slightly recessed background and are colored in a darker blue. On the left, three people are holding long knives and looking determined, above their heads are hands grasping something between thumb and for-finger. On the other side, there are people in riot gear, attack dogs, and a young man getting arrested.

For those who have read Jane Yolen’s Foiled! and Curses! Foiled, Again!! you might recognize Mike Cavallaro’s illustrations. Angela, the 15-year-old protagonist, looks similar to Aliera from Foiled.

Angela lives in a future that values speed above all else. 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”. This hyper existence is punctuated by short bursts of dialogue with each speaker signaling the end of an idea with “GO!”. This active and distracted life results in less time spent digesting what they consume – both mentally and physically. Heart rates are monitored, sleep is modified to keep everyone sped up, hyped up, and distracted.

Angela 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. They practice meditation, eat farm to table, and crave a slower pace. Angela finds Gladys and romance blooms – in three days they are ready to declare their love, spend all their time together, and plan art projects. Seems pretty on par with most lesbian relationships.

SPOILER!!!

At some point things get creepy – and not in a good way. The underground rebels decide to take an experimental drug – Decelerate Blue – that quickens the slowing of their physiology – including their heart rate. Get it? They can’t wait to slow down, so they have to take a drug to make the process of slowing down go faster. When the three leaders tell the entire community to take this drug – which no one has ever heard of – they all comply. The followers are willing to take a drug, en mass, because their leaders tell them to. This was too much like the People Temple mass suicide/murder overseen by Jim Jones in 1978. The image of a bunch of young people ingesting a drug on the say-so of their leaders is only one of the serious issues I have with this graphic novel.

Just after feeding each other the pill and laying down to wait for the effects to take hold the underground compound is attacked by security forces in riot gear wielding batons and dogs. The attack is vicious, and to no lesbian’s surprise, Angela and Gladys are separated. Angela sees Gladys taken down by a dog, her hand outstretched, her eyes fading. Angela is saved, the underground caves are filled in with ultra-quick drying cement thus sealing the fate of the entire community. After that, Angela is told her parents have arranged for her to be institutionalized to help her get over her behavior. She escapes, heads back to the entrance of the underground compound, and overdoses on the remaining Decelerate Blue.

Yeah. So that happened.

We, as adults, need to demand better from the books that represent mis- and under-represented communities. We need to insist on more substance than this tired collection of damaging tropes. Lesbians deserve to live. Period. We deserve books that show our lives are worthy and worthwhile. This is not that book.