The Floundering Time

Best friends Emma and Joey contemplate their past and present lives, crushes and sexual preferences during the hectic final week of college in Weselcouch's solid debut about what it means to try and find your place. Though the cursive lettering is at times difficult to read, the simple pen-and-ink drawings evoke the "bubble" the women's college provides for the characters. At school, everything is simultaneously winding down%E2%80%94rooms packed up, parents arriving%E2%80%94and gearing up, with the anticipation of graduation and inevitable questions of what comes next. Emma is harboring a not-so-secret crush on Elliott, a shy transgender boy who recently broke up with his boyfriend, while Joey can't shake her attraction to the baddest of the bad girls, usually the ones that break her heart. Flashbacks to earlier semesters, most notably Emma and Joey's study abroad in Paris, show the developing friendship. Weselcouch captures the immediacy of the final days of college as well as the complex interrelationships of her characters, most of whom identify as gay, lesbian, transgender, or, more inclusively, queer. The characters' sexuality is rarely overtly discussed but neither is it ignored: Weselcouch depicts them as any other group of young people about to go out into the world. (June)