“Queer and How We Got Here” Interweaves Memoir and History for Teen Readers

Queer and How We Got Here, Eisner Award–winning editor and cartoonist Hazel Newlevant’s second full-length work, solidifies their position as one of the more inquisitive voices in contemporary queer comics. Rather than simply chart their personal transmasculine nonbinary journey, Newlevant augments their memoir with a rigorous, sweeping survey of LGBTQ+ history. It’s an inspired structural gambit that that makes this essential reading for young people exploring questions of identity, sexuality, and belonging.

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Newlevant’s direct-address structure—with Hazel-as-narrator stepping in and out of the historical material—is effective and well calibrated. Their authorial persona is likable and relatable without being sentimental. A high level of self-awareness keeps things grounded while adding an undercurrent of bittersweet humor. When Newlevant comes out as bisexual to their “crunchy granola” parents by asserting, “I know ’cause I like this girl on my dance team,” their mom is supportive but not fully affirming. “That’s nice!” she exclaims, before quickly adding, “You’re so young, though. You don’t need to commit to anything yet!”

It’s a tragic-comedic moment that underscores how even the most accepting parent sometimes still filters the world through their own limited understanding. “God, Mom. I’m not saying we’ll get married!” counters young Newlevant moments later. “But I know how I feel and I’d appreciate it if you believed me.” On the surface, their mom is supportive, while remaining skeptical. “Sure. I believe you!” she says. “And I’m happy you like this girl. I’m just saying—”

It’s a small but telling hedge. She believes her child, supports her child, loves her child, yet also makes it clear she’s more than willing to welcome Hazel back to the heterosexual fold should her affection for the girl on the dance team turn out to be a phase.

Newlevant’s writing is crisp, but it’s their figure work that really excels. With halftone dot textures and white highlights throughout, their lines are loose and dynamic while avoiding the easy cuteness that tends to plague so many contemporary YA comics. Body language conveys basic emotion, while facial expressions make it specific. In an early sequence with Sammy—young Hazel’s first crush—we feel the electricity before the characters can name it. Even without any captions, the emotional arc would be clear, which is what comics do best and where Newlevant soars.

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Similarly, their choice to work in a limited palette of blue, salmon pink, and warm orange is a strength, not a limitation. Each color combination claims its own emotional and temporal territory, signaling where and when scenes take place while underscoring the narrator’s interiority.

Blue is the book’s dominant color, present on every page, the medium through which everything flows, while the secondary colors shift in subtle, strategic ways. Pink-and-blue scenes tend to show Newlevant wrestling with identity, memory, and society’s binary structures. Orange and blue tend to signal disruption: specific moments in the historical record where activists and others pushed back against fixed notions of gender and sexuality. Newlevant renders themself in a shifting balance of blue and pink—the two most conventionally gendered colors in Western society—suggesting a generative tension that lingers throughout the book. It’s this volatile interplay between Newlevant’s personal journey and the pathfinders who preceded them where the book feels most alive. The weight lands because the connection is rendered structurally, not just asserted in text.

At times, the memoir sections and the history sections run on parallel tracks and the transitions between them read as authorial commentary: Here’s what happened to me; here’s some history that may explain it; now back to me. When the history chapters arrive as fairly discrete, self-contained units (the invention of sexual orientation categories, Stonewall, gay liberation, organizing against domestic violence), we stray from Hazel’s personal story, losing the deftly braided juxtapositions that make the book special. The art becomes punctuation more than illumination, making it seem like a TED Talk or even a textbook. The connective tissue pulls apart, slowing the book’s momentum precisely when Newlevant’s personal journey feels the most immersive.

Little, Brown Ink

That’s by no means a fatal flaw. The historical content is vital and strong, and Newlevant delivers it with the same warmth and clarity that animates the personal sections. Given the book’s 14+ designation, no doubt many readers will be coming to this history fresh. The alternating structure may feel clarifying and even revelatory. Either way, the book’s best pages are the ones where the art reveals things that prose alone can’t.

The queer comic memoir is a subgenre that has been genuinely transformed in the last decade, from Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home to Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer to Kabi Nagata’s My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness. Queer and How We Got Here is sure to be an invaluable companion for young people finding their way—and for the librarians, teachers, and parents thoughtful enough to put the book in their hands.