Hockey Girl Loves Drama Boy | CM: Canadian Review of Materials

Volume XXX / Issue 11 - November 17 / 2023

Hockey Girl Loves Drama Boy

Author:

Faith Erin Hicks

New York, NY: First Second (Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books), 2023

286 pp., trade pbk., $22.99

ISBN:

9781250838728

Grades:

Grades 10 and up

Ages:

Ages 15 and up

Review by:

Sarah Wethered

Excerpt:

Congrats to you baddass ladies. We’re officially on a five-game winning streak! Top ranked team in British Columbia! Let’s hear a hell yeah!
Hell yeah!
Indeed. Let’s thank the people who got us here.
Give props to our fearless coach!
Thank Lindsay. Couldn’t have done it without your hustle.
Sara B., our goalie extraordinaire. Girl, you glove is on fire!
You know it!
Meggie, our best defensive weapon! We call her “The Wall.”
We really don’t.
And Anne Marie with that French Canadian forward heat!
It is also me who is on fire.
And finally, our star. Thanks for that gorgeous game-winning assist, Alix.
Heh, no problem.
We wouldn’t be here without our top goal scorer killing it on the ice every game.
I thank God every day she gave Alix all those mad hockey skills, and skills at absolutely nothing else.

Hockey Girl Loves Drama Boy is a graphic novel that tells the story of Alix and Ezra, two people who, on the surface, have nothing in common, but once they get to know each other, begin a romantic relationship. When Alix is almost kicked off her hockey team for getting into a fight with the team captain, Lindsay, Alix turns to Ezra who she has seen stand up to the homophobic taunts that are yelled to him daily by Lindsay’s boyfriend, Greg. Alix would like Ezra to teach her strategies of how to not get angry at Lindsay’s constant bullying. Ezra agrees to help, and, while this relationship in the beginning stages, both begin to have feelings for each other. Ezra reveals quite quickly that he is, in fact, bisexual, and not gay, and the two begin a romantic relationship.

Readers of Hockey Girl Loves Drama Boy will also enjoy the wonderful artwork that goes with this compelling story. Further, the story moves at a fast enough pace that readers will not have the chance to get bored and will want to know if Lindsay and Ezra both deal with family issues that seem to be holding them back from true happiness.

I recommend this graphic novel to fans of Faith Erin Hicks’ previous works or those readers looking for a twist on the storyline of the sport star falling in love with the drama geek. The three-colour illustrations beautiful complement the story and do not detract from the messages of self-acceptance and love that permeate the pages of Hockey Girl Loves Drama Boy.

Highly Recommended

Reviewer:

Sarah Wethered has been a teacher-librarian at New Westminster Secondary School for 24 years, and she currently lives in New Westminster, British Columbia.