Sunhead by Alex Assan (review)

Reviewed by: Sunhead by Alex Assan Meg Cornell Assan, Alex Sunhead; written and illus. by Alex Assan. HarperAlley, 2024 256p Trade ed. ISBN 9780063113589 26. 99 Paper ed. ISBN 9780063113572 18. 99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780063113596 9. 99 Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 7-11 Rotem spends most of her time in a distracted haze, dreaming about her favorite vampire high school romance series, Sunrise, while navigating day-to-day teen life in Tehran. Her family and friends dismiss her passion for the books, but she finds a fellow fan in classmate Ayala, and the two soon fumble into a friendship obsessing about the series together. Rotem finds a romantic proxy in Edmund, inserting herself into the fantasy where she can sport cool, short hair or wrap a girl up protectively in her arms. Ayala can only truly articulate her feelings via the lens of the books, describing her reaction upon hearing Rotem play the piano for the first time as "just like the scene from Sunrise. " After Rotem helps Ayala through an arthritis flare-up, the two share a kiss, and reality scarily overtakes fantasy, leaving the two to confront what they've really been connecting about when it seems like they've just been talking about vampires. Ayala and Rotem's halting, quiet, sapphic End Page 315 romance is depicted with a depth of realistic teen sincerity punctuated by bursts of tension and thrill. Assan's uniquely affective art style complements a story beautifully devoted to subtextual queerness and the imaginative space fandom provides queer teens. Every glance, bit of dialogue, and scene transition is imbued with meaning, using visual storytelling to its absolute highest potential, and warm cloud-puffs and wordless panels in tones of coral and salmon give Rotem's imaginings of the books a sense of both whimsy and yearning. Rotem is a charmingly grumpy, raw-nerved romantic who is instantly sympathetic to readers chafing up against compulsory heterosexuality, struggling to see themselves as a "romantic lead" and beginning to understand their gender/sexuality by way of fandoms like Twilight. Matchmake with Walton and Áska's Stars in their Eyes, Estrela's Pardalita (BCCB 5/23), or Tsurutani's BL Metamorphosis to maximize that cloud-9 feeling. Copyright © 2024 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois