Jessica Campbell: Rave

"Rave is a thoughtful, painful coming-of-age tale with gravitas, wrapped in a deceptively charming package." —The Comics Journal 

"This is a story to leave readers melancholy, wistful, and wondering what could have been if only the world weren’t so cruel or full of hypocrisy."—Booklist

In Rave, we follow the story of Lauren, a fifteen-year-old, soft-spoken, devout member of an evangelical church who is ashamed of her body. After a queer encounter with a classmate, Lauren experiences a potent blend of faith-based guilt and internalized homophobia that causes her to question the experience.

Artist and author Jessica Campbell uses frankness and dark humor to articulate Lauren's burgeoning crisis of faith and sexuality. She captures teenage antics and banter with astute comedic style, simultaneously skewering bullies, a culture of slut-shaming, and the devastating impact of religious zealotry. Rave is an instant classic, a coming-of-age story about the secret spaces young women create and the wider social structures that fail them.