Squad

Squad - 2.5 Stars

There are spoilers in this review.

A Quick Overview:
This takes about 20 minutes to read or less. 30 if you want to soak in the pages to take your time. Although this comic is very faced paced, very predictable, you still get everything you expect from your stereotypical fantasy type high-school drama.

Summary:
This takes place in the rich setting of Piedmont. Where the new girl Becca gets adopted into the popular girls crowd. Little does she know these girls have their own secret lives & the best way to fit in is to join their pack as a werewolf But at what cost, when her life others lives but what if it was for a good cause? Especially when accidents result in a careless mistake, how far will these girls go?

Art:
The illustrations, details and colors are simply effective.The bold colors, and simple linear makes the story easy to follow and enjoyable. It perfectly balances the context.

Pros & Cons & Reflections:

There are some notable topics that both support and hurt this book.

Like feminism for example, where these girls use their werewolf power to eliminate and to combat the toxic masculinity and brutality that is exerted by some men. I cheer on this book as this addresses this issue. Of course this is exaggerated but this is done in a concise way that keeps the reader's attention. But the con of this results in an unfortunate reality where as soon as everything goes south, their power, and greatest strengths that were essential to the pack's motto and survivability results in fatal betrayal towards the end.The established rules had no room for mistakes, and resulted in a higher standard and more powerful women to take matters into their own hands.

This book has a diverse set of characters on the cover. And that's what got me to pick up this book. But the way their personality is portrayed gets to me. I understand that this may have been sticking to the common tropes of today. Whether or not it's apart of the story and its giving a lot of covert racism. Of course it's stereotypical, but why go to such a length to make your women of color in this book a main character and give them bad rep.

They way the main character Asian girl in this book is put down descriptive wise repetitively. To the point where she acts oblivious to this. Her character eventually accepts it as a misunderstanding or a compliment? And that's where I come back to covert racism. I understand beauty standards in this book and the ideal body type toxic body type issues in general that girls have to deal with in high-school and in society. But this continues to be a problem even after she “joins the pack and becomes perfect.” Also her girlfriend, her “ride or die for life” took part in this. Like if she can't figure out who you are and can only see you as a pretty mermaid. Not once did she ask, she assumed and did not acknowledge you or ask for an answer of who she really is. It's toxic. The fact that you can make her the main character that has the most common sense and reasonable person out of everyone in this book. And making her oblivious to this does not make sense.

The black girl Amanda, her character, gives off major angry black woman vibes towards the end of the book only. At first you think oh this is just an average angry teenage girl Anti hero. But there was no need to turn her into an accomplice to the villain over a broken rule where the punishment results in death. It did not have to become her personality and not the solution to the story. Her role wasn't major until then. If you were going to give her status, why make her a villain? Also the other pack of wolves were a diverse cast too. Toxic Men were supposed to be the antagonist, what happened?

Another problem I have is with the lgbtq+ representation.
I feel like the gay rep is an excuse and a distraction. I love gay rep in books but I thought oh this is going to be a sapphic drama love story with a simple fantasy twist. But after all that my perception was really wrong I've come to the conclusion that her girlfriend (Marley btw) is the one who dragged her into this mess. Like of course she gave you the opportunity for you to have everything you wanted. But they could have easily just dated in secret and then got found out by the wolves. Becca could have joined the wolves and got her power and her and avoided all this mess. She didn't have to join the cult. You could have just been on the run all the time. Of course this was essential to the sapphic storytelling romantic element. But Marley I feel like is a bit brainwashed. She didn't warn Becca of the dangers, she didn't try to scare her away. She acted blind and went along with everything and it reduced her to the status of “ follower” side character. She's there for emotional support but she doesn't do any justice.

Conclusion:
This book has a solid foundation a good base for story telling. It gives this story a lot more room for more structured in depth storytelling. If this was not faced pace and was longer and went into more depth I wouldn't consider this to be rushed storytelling. There is no room for the characters to actually go under proper character development because this is so trope stereotypical based. Its fantasy ideas of women having power just falls short, because it is not presented thoroughly. It addressed major issues about societal norms that are problematic. But the way this was portrayed, the ending messed alot of what this book had going that was positive. I wouldn't find this inspiring. This has potential but does not hit home

Hot take:
This is your simplified version of Twilight but the Cullens are all thirst trap werewolf feminists. Who are murderous robin hoods. for the greater good with the touch of Sapphic lesbianism.