I Shall Never Fall in Love
Teens who adore costume TV romances like Bridgerton but don’t quite have the patience to read an Austen book will pounce on this lighthearted, witty graphic novel. Conner reimagines Austen’s Emma with LGBTQ+ and BIPOC characters: Eleanor is the Emma character, a confident young woman who has no wish to marry a man; Charlotte, her conventional cousin/confidante, is the Harriet Smith character; and Austen’s George Knightley becomes Georgina Kingsley, who prefers to be called George and wear gentlemen’s clothes, and carries a tendre for their childhood friend, Eleanor. When George is forced by their family to debut in London, they convince their besties to tag along, with an eye toward securing a husband for the penniless Charlotte, the daughter of Eleanor’s clergyman uncle and a West Indian woman. Once among the ton, however, all three receive uncomfortable lessons about the cost of being true to oneself in a materialistic world.
The anime-flavored drawings are energetic and expressive, but sometimes informal to the point of appearing a bit sloppy. The dialogue, however, is fresh and funny and the characters are adorable from the first moment we see them huddled together before a cozy fire at teatime. Conner draws the reader deeply into their coming-of-age experiences. George and Eleanor’s budding romance will remind historical fans of the HBO series Gentleman Jack (Conner notes in an extensive, informative afterword that George is modeled on Anne Lister), and Charlotte’s predicament as a young woman of color hoping to marry well echoes a similar character in the Sanditon PBS series. For young readers, however, these borrowings are just the ticket for awakening a taste for Regency novels, and the charm of their relationships is a tremendous gift to LGBTQ+ readers who rarely get to see characters like themselves in historical romance.
