I think this is aimed for older teens, but I really dug it too. That means the storyline is great.

We have our main character Fred trying to go through her high school years being in a relationship with, you guessed it, Laura Dean. It's already hard enough being a teenager and trying to find love, but to be gay, even in this day and age, adds extra weight. On top of that Laura Dean is a player. She's smooth and cool but she also messes around with other girls. Fred just can't seem to draw herself away from her though.

We also have a plot B with Fred and her friend Doodle. And while it seems like a background story it actually adds a lot of layers to the main story by the end. On top of that we have Fred learning life isn't just high school and coming out more, going to parties, and meeting new people will open you up to more experiences.

By the end of this story I come to really enjoy a lot of the characters. At first, I'll be honest, it was hard to tell who was who. A lot of the characters looked similar, and I was also getting confused on who was a girl and who was a guy. But it all clicked in about 30-40 pages in. I also got drawn to the subplot a lot and the way they handle Doodles issues worked really well. The cursing adds realism to this story and it is used to enforce these are actual teenagers without going overboard. Like I said prior, the art could be confusing at times and a lot of the characters have similar haircuts, which made it confusing at first.

Overall though this is really solid story. One of my favorites of the year in the indie season of great comics. Mariko has a talent of giving some great dialogue to characters. Like "This one Summer" she gives us a slice of life story we maybe didn't know we wanted, but I sure as hell ended up enjoying it. A 4.5 out of 5.