Draw the Line by Laurent Linn

Title: Draw the Line
By: Laurent Linn
Published: 2016
Call #: YA Fiction Linn.L

Draw the Line follows the coming out of Adrian Piper, a young comic book artist in a tiny Texas town. Adrian uses his superhero alter ego, Graphite, to cope with the stresses of high school until a violent hate crime makes him realize that not all heroes wear capes.

I really enjoyed this book! The setup is, at this point, a touch cliché: a boy in a small southern town comes out and it’s hard. While these stories are important and a part of many people’s lives, unless they are handled with care they can come across as tired. This one did not because author and artist Laurent Linn deftly combined traditional narrative with “comic book” style narrative. The story, while clocking in at over 500 pages, moved quickly and I never felt bogged down by any of the prose. All in all I would totally recommend this book to anyone who enjoys coming out stories, or any fans of the graphic novel genre!

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