As a child, Valentina loves Valentine's Day more than Christmas and makes cards for her classmates at school, while chatting to her Cupid-like imaginary friend "Saint V". But in her teens, she comes to discover that this close association is the result of a whole load of other things going on in her early life of which she wasn't quite conscious - the statue of St Valentine at the Catholic church that her grandmother attends and some other things I won't spoil.
At the same time, Val, who is from a Vietnamese family, is part of a wider Chinese community in this unnamed part of the US, and takes up lion-dancing in part as a step up from her childhood ballet classes and in part because a particular boy is involved. The lion dance has its own mythology, which interweaves with that of St Valentine. In practice and performance, she learns to keep in time with her co-performer and also to recognise when they're not quite in step.
It's brilliantly well observed, from the cultural specifics (one character takes a rice cooker with them on holiday!) to the cringe of inter-personal politics at school. I laughed out load several times. But it also perfectly captures the raw energy of teenage emotion. Some characters are horribly selfishly but most mean well while doing things that affects others badly. It all feels specific, grounded and real, even though it's about the way that ghosts and spirits haunt our everyday lives and help us to reflect and heal.
In all, this is a joy to read, beautiful to look at and the coda of a few extra panels placed around the closing acknowledgements and indicia really got me. Wow.
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