Review Detail

COMING OUT PERFECT follows Kevin, a gay teenager whose coming out doesn’t go as expected. A party leads to him confessing his desire to be more like Raymond – the popular gay kid in his school who seems to be perfect. Raymond takes Kevin under his wing, helping him learn how to be the “perfect gay”. But is being perfect as good as it seems?

This is a cute graphic novel, but it also feels very simple. Kevin has decent depth and his tension with his family is handled well. However, the book doesn’t feel impactful. The stakes feel low and the characters don’t feel fully developed. It’s not a major issue, and I’ve seen the book marked as #1 so I hope any future sequel(s) may expand on this world, but certain readers may expect more from this book.

Richard Mercade does an amazing job at illustrating this novel. There isn’t a lot of color used in the book, but the artist manages to keep it all from blending in. The characters all have distinct appearances as well, making it easy to tell them apart even without being able to rely on other colors/details.

COMING OUT PERFECT takes place in the Philippine’s. For readers who may not know a lot about the country or Filipino culture, the author makes note of some of the information that readers may want to know. They’re small little blocks of information that give some additional context. Personally, I found that this added to the experience.

This book touches lightly on some serious topics. Kevin’s desire to be perfect and his parents’ reaction to him coming out; other queer kids at the school trying to start a LGBTQIA+ club at their high school. It doesn’t always go in-depth on these issues, but it is nice to see them being brought up at least.

COMING OUT PERFECT is a sweet YA graphic novel that was nice to read, but didn’t enrapture me. The characters were enjoyable, the illustrations clean and lovely, but the stakes never quite felt real. This graphic novel has quite a bit of promise and I hope it gets expanded on at some point.