I received an eARC of Cheer Up: Love and Pom Poms by Crystal Frasier, Val Wise, and Oscar Jupiter from @netgalley and @onipress in exchange for an honest review.

This is a light and sweet graphic novel about two cheerleaders discovering first love and learning more about themselves. Bebe is trans and the team treats her like a token or mascot. Annie is a grumpy iconoclast who needs cheerleading to pad her college applications. They used to be best friends and it’s never clear why they fell out of touch but they reconnect through cheerleading. They crush on each other and they smooch. The ending wraps up a little too quickly and nicely. The cheer team magically realizes they were treating Bebe badly and her parents suddenly accept her and give her more freedom.

I give this four fizzy feel-good stars. I really enjoyed this graphic novel and the art was great.

Cheer Up is one of the sweetest graphic novels I've read recently! As a middle school teacher, I can't wait to add it to my classroom library. The book consists of a group of diverse characters (also inclusive of size-- cheerleaders don't look like the ones you expect from pop culture which is rad) and it goes over some important themes like friendship and microaggressions in a very accessible way without being too on the nose.

Cheer Up: Love and Pompoms is an adorable LGBT graphic novel featuring one of my favorite ship dynamics: grumpy x sunshine. And I honestly loved reading about Annie, BeeBee and the other girls on the cheer squad. This was a cute romance but it also leaned heavily into the importance of friendship and properly supporting your friends who need it.

This graphic novel is short but it still found a way to perfectly demonstrate the harmfulness of performative activism. I think this will be an important book for young readers, because when the other girls feel like they have to over protect BeeBee or make a show out of her being trans, they realize that they aren't really listening to her needs. It is only when they start to listen to her that they're all able to be better, happier friends.

The art in this was also beautiful. I loved the style and colors. Overall it was a really enjoyable read. The only drawback was that I wish there had been just a few more pages in some of the moments where Annie and BeeBee were bonding and rebuilding their friendship into something more. Their chemistry was clear and I loved them together, but it still felt kind of rushed.

rep: trans latina MC, lesbian MC, nonbinary SC, POC SCs
TWs: transphobia, sexual harrassment, fatphobia

ARC provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for sending me an arc of this book!

I absolutely adored this read! It is the perfect fluffy and wholesome read that follows two main characters Annie, an anti-social, plus-sized lesbian who is mad at the world and Bebe, a trans girl who is scared to stand up for herself and be in the spotlight. Both start out on teh cheerleading team andf their relationship starts from there.

I loved the way in which both Annie and Bebes struggles were addressed. Showing the blantant forms of transphobia and the micro-aggressions that can occur. I also liked the way in which Annie was educated on a problem she was also contributing to and took it in her stride to understand and stop!

I would have loved to see more on the family dynamic between both bebe and her family but also Annie and hers!

Overall this was a really wholesome read and I would highly recommend it!!

This is a really sweet story about Annie and BeeBee and their friendship. The two girls used to be friends, but have drifted apart a bit over the years. When Annie is encouraged to join a team - cheerleading no less - to try and improve her college applications, she's reunited with BeeBee.

As well as dealing with school grades, parents, and teen drama, they're also experiencing everything that comes with being queer high schoolers; the good and the difficult. The two become close and eventually discover there might be more than friendship ...

It was such a cute story, while also covering some really important issues that arise through the characters and their lives. I loved the style of art in this graphic novel, illustrated by Val Wise. It's definitely my favourite type of graphic novel; soft and round, rather than sharp and edgy, if you know what I mean.

If you're looking for a sweet tale of friendship and love (and pompoms), then pick up Cheer Up! Love and Pompoms, when it comes out in August.

super super cute, if a bit choppy. the storyline is pretty straightforward but the pacing is off, and things move just a little too fast to feel natural. plus, there’s the whole backstory between bebe and annie we never even really get a peak at. why did they stop being friends? why did annie have so much animosity towards bebe before they reconnected?

regardless, i sped through and finished in about an hour. the relationship is sweet and the novel itself brings up a lot of really important issues surrounding trans identities!

This story follows Annie, a smart, antisocial lesbian, who’s under pressure to join the cheerleader squad to make friends and round out her college applications and BeeBee who is a people-pleaser—a trans girl, she must keep her parents happy with her grades and social life to keep their support of her transition.

This was a short and cute story about how two former friends rekindle their friendship and discover that there could be something more between them.

The characters are very lovable and totally opposites, I liked seeing how they both helped each other with different things.

I really liked the illustrations and had fun reading this story!

CWs: transphobia, microaggressions, harassment, depiction of abusive courtship
Rep: lesbian MC, trans girl MC, nonbinary side character

This was a fun, adorable and important graphic novel. This story is about a trans girl and a fat-girl forming frienship over cheerleading. Both deals with their own issues. This graphic novels deals with important topics like transphobia and fat-shaming and still it is not a heavy read. I wish this was a little longer because I wanted to know more about Beatrice and Annie. Their character development was so amazing.

Definitely recommend it.

This graphic novel captured my heart and played with my emotions. Following Bebe and Annie navigate re-forming their long lost friendship when Annie is aggressively encouraged to join the cheerleading team. </spoiler> was heart warming. I found myself immersed in their worlds and frustrated by the ignorance of the people around them, both obvious and subtle. I also found myself cheering for Annie and Bebe's growing relationship, and incredible joyful as it deepened and grew. Their ability to grow and help each other grow was heartwarming. I wish I had books like this that depicted the love I never thought I could have in a completely normalized manner. Bebe and Annie's love story will make your heart happy, and bring you hope from the next generation of children.

Cheer Up is a sweet, funny queer graphic novel.
BeeBee and ANnie used to be friends. Annie is a lesbian that hates anything girly. BeeBee is trans who is the captain of the cheerleaders. When Annie is forced to try out for cheerleading to improve her college applications, the two rekindle their friendship.

this graphic novel was an absolute delight!! following annie, a fat, grumpy lesbian with a soft heart, and bebe, a sapphic, biracial trans girl learning to stand up for herself, i loved the diversity and happiness packed into this short story. annie is encouraged to join the cheerleading team by her mother when she realizes she doesn’t have enough extracurriculars, and though angry, annie reunites with bebe. it’s a love story, and just an adorable read with lots of heart and beautiful art.

the plot, overall, was quite simple, and showed annie and bebe growing closer, as well as their antics while cheerleading and training with their team. i loved how this book tackled important issues, such as transphobia, in a serious way, without focusing the entire story on it. i also really appreciated the fat rep!! annie is fat, and there are other teammates who also are, but it’s not shown as an issue or causing any conflict!! i truly have nothing much to complain about with this sweet story.

one thing that did throw me off slightly was the length, as it was very short at 128 pages, and read almost more as a middle grade than a young adult novel. it was nice, and just meant it was a more fast paced read, but i do think they could’ve expanded a bit on the story and developed the plot further.

I loved the relationship between the characters. They are so cute and respect each other. I liked the conversations about some aspects of the experience of a trans girl in high school too. I recommend !

Annie is pressured to join the cheer leaders team for her grades. There she find Beebee her former best friend.
Beebee is a transgender girl who faces a lot of pressure from her parents and her colleagues at school.
Soon, the two girls find solace and their friendship rekindles. They continue to protect and support each other in the face of discrimination and hate.

What I loved about the book:
This book is a very gentle story that has realistic characters. It shows that love can be found at hard times.
I really loved the art and the diversity of the characters.

What I didn't loved about the book:
The story felt a little bit rushed.

Overall, this is a very sweet book.

Thanks to Netgalley and Oni Press for providing an ARC of this book in exchange of an honest review.

Queer cheerleader romance?! I was instantly sold upon reading the description of this graphic novel. I haven't read a lot of literature in this format, but this seems to be my motivation for picking up more graphic novels in the future. Cheer Up features a lesbian mc and a biracial trans mc following their journey through falling in love on the cheer team. It was a primarily happy read, but did touch on topics of transphobia and sexual harassment. Keep that in mind when going to pick up this amazing book.
This was just what i needed to close out pride month and i Look forward to seeing more from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and Oni Press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. I really enjoyed this graphic novel. I thought the characters and overall themes were well written and I really enjoyed the illustrations. Only dislike is that I really wanted the book to address some problematic comments from the main protagonist’s friends and fellow cheerleaders. It was slightly addressed but only at the surface level.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes for this book!

What an inspirational graphic novel! I have recently become obsessed with graphic novels and I kept seeing this book here and there and I definitely wanted to give it a go! This book is a quick read with some amazing commentary on one's sexuality and gender. This book did a fantastic job with regarding the struggles that can come with coming out and how that affects teenagers in school too.

Also the art is the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen!! The full page artwork was wow!

Thank you to NetGalley and Oni Press for the earc in return for an honest review.

Release date: August 10, 2021

I received a copy of this e-arc in exchange for an honest review thanks to NetGalley and Oni Press.

Ahhhhh this was just so cute!!

I don’t usually read graphic novels but I saw this on NetGalley and it sounded interesting.

It’s a sweet, quick and easy read. It’s got great lgbt representation - trans female, lesbian and non-binary.

It’s got a mix of heartfelt and heavy scenes, both of which were handled very well. The way the author dealt with Beatrice’s struggle in high school post-transition was really good.

It also showed her parents struggling with Beatrice’s transition in the sense of wanting to protect her from transphobes but coming across as too overprotective which is great parenting. However, they did threaten to “make her go back to being a guy” if she doesn’t get high grades in school which is problematic.

I adored Annie and her mother, such great characters! They’re both very open and honest, which means Annie ends up being disliked by her classmates.

I loved the character development for both Annie and Beatrice. I especially loved that they were friends pre-transition and Annie didn’t bat an eyelid about it - she just accepted it and moved on.

Fantastic book - i’ll definitely be picking up more queer graphic novels in the future!

An adorable LGBTQA+ high school romance about friendship and being true to yourself. Highly recommended!

This was such a lovely, quick read! Bebe and Annie are both lovable characters in their own right, and their dynamic is adorable! Girl that's a people-pleaser meets girl that doesn't care what other people think? A match made in cheer practice. While having an incredibly sweet romance, Cheer Up: Love and Pom Poms also shares really strong messages about standards for trans girls, performative allyship, microaggressions, and more. This graphic novel managed to tackle the issue of performative allyship better than anything on the topic I have read before. Bebe's feelings of wanting to speak up and defend herself but not wanting to bring attention to herself by seeming like an aggressive trans girl were so real. I love how her parents weren't necessarily unaccepting of her transitioning, but just extremely concerned for her safety. There are more than enough stories of characters being outright shunned by their parents for coming out, and while it is realistic it was a nice change to read this.

My only real complaint (okay, first of two really), is how fast the romance developed. This was my first graphic novel so this is probably normal and I shouldn't have been expecting novel type pacing, but I would've loved just a few more pages showing the girls' feelings for each other grow. My only other qualm was (SPOILER) how the rest of the cheer squad kinda got away with being transphobic to Bebe. They made multiple snide comments and even neglected to invite her to team events but they're never really called out for it (except once by Annie) It makes sense since Bebe isn't the type to call people out anyway, but it would've been nice to see them realize how they were really treating her and examine why they were doing it.

That aside, this was such a cute story and I highly recommend it!

This was very good, I really enjoyed it and would recommend it. It shows a great story and it's a well told story, the romance is good paced based on the amount of pages this have. And I was so happy with the way they portayed both the characters and how they're opposites, Annie doesn't care about the opinions people have of her, and Beebee is a people pleaser. It's a great way of showing different LGBTQ+ representation, me being a Lesbian reader can't say much about being Trans but there's a part where Beebee says and I quote:

"I know I shouldn't apologize all the time... I just feel like I have to apologize for being around.(...) And even the people who are nice get so much angrier when I get upset than they did before. Like they're just waiting for proof that I'm "One of the bad ones".".

I felt that part on another level, the LGBTQ+ community is already a very targeted community, we want to be loud and speak out but, at least for me growing in a very religious house hold and still closeted, need to be very carefull to not pass the line between nice and mean/angry, we have to say what we have to defend who we are and still be 100% nice to the people who is disrespectful and pejudiced towards something we can't control, otherwise we're the bad guys.

Sorry for my rant, but I really loved that part and this book!

Thank You NetGalley and OniPress for giving me acess to this book. (This is review contain only my honest opinion)