This book was a lovely story of a misfit teen who becomes friends with a transgender girl. The story is honest about being trans in school. The main character, Bebe, struggles to balance all of her responsibilities because of her inability to say no. As a trans teen, she is already in the spotlight more than she likes, and she lets people run over her. She gets closer to Annie after she tries out for cheerleading. Annie teaches her what it means to be firm and set boundaries with others. Bebe teaches Annie what it's like to be gentle and forgiving.

This story was lovely. I highly recommend it!

Cute story with an adorable art style. Teenagers in high school, learning to navigate their lives would be the tag line. I was so happy to see some positive loving family rep towards the trans girl as well. Too often the family doesn't support her, but there was a happy ending here.

Annie is super smart and a total smart alec. When she is in danger of not getting into college, she is forced to join the cheer squad to round out her resume. Annie has totally pushed away everyone, instead of Bebe, who is the only one encouraging Annie to be accepted on the squad. Bebe recently transitioned from male to female and needs to get her grades up or her parents will make her transition back. Annie and Bebe help each other out and their friendship potentially develops into something more.


This romance was super cute. I want to see more from this squad.

I received a digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book!! It's so cute and sweet! Bebe and Annie are teens both trying to find their way through the ups and downs of high school and reconnect through cheerleading. Bebe struggles with standing up for herself and Annie deals with being too abrasive. Through their friendship and budding romance, they help each other become comfortable in their own skin.

I really loved this one. It has the right amount of soft and sweet, while also having a great message of becoming comfortable in your own skin. The art is great and the writing is also amazing. I highly recommend!

A short fun and sweet LGBTQ graphic novel.. The art style is cute and feels fresh. There are some instances of queer teens dealing with issues like transitioning, microaggressions (from friends and strangers), and growing up. Great for fans of Check, Please!

This graphic novel, follows two teenage girls, Annie and Beatrice, who used to be friends, they manage to find their way back to each other when Annie joins the cheerleading team that Beatrice happens to be new captain of. Both girls have different personalities and are finding out who they are, especially Beatrice who is still adjusting to being an out trans girl, and what they mean to each other. Also the art style is gorgeous. I really enjoyed it, overall this was short and so so sweet and lovely.

Thank you NetGalley and Oni Press for an Arc of this comic in exchange for an honest review.

I LOVE This Comics !
It was so cute and sweet and everything !
I just fell in love with this girls and i'm so happy to see a trans girl as a captain of a cheerleaders team.. We always see some bitches as cheerleaders and the worst of them is always captain. But here, it's not that and it's sooooo cool !
I love the fact all girls are all differents : no one looks like the same as an other one, like classics cheereaders teams in movies or comics or series. So it's a very good point !
As a fat girl who did gymnastic when I was younger, I was happy to easy the main character who is fat but can make some gym workout and be a flyer !
However, sexisme and transphobia was terrible to read. Particularly the moments when this guy wanted to force Beebee to be with him. When you are a woman you are always scared about this nkind of situation and it was always triggering to read.

I can't wait to see this comics in bookstore to sell it to my costumers and I hope it will be translate in french one day.

I was feeling slumpy in my reading and this so-freaking-sweet graphic novel was exactly the thing I needed! With polar-opposite adorable main characters that kept me going "awww" the whole time paired with Important Messages that didn't feel like unrealistic PSAs, this was such an enjoyable read.

In particular, I really appreciated the way this story tackled microaggressions from friends and family that think they're doing the <i>right thing</i>, and highlighting young people grappling with knowing what they need vs. what everyone thinks is right for them.

Only complaint—I want more! I hope to see more coming soon.

This was a super cute and touching graphic novel. I liked both girls and thought they were written well and were interesting characters. The art style was great and it helped tell the story wonderfully. This is definitely a series i would read more from as this one was so well done.

Cheer Up was everything I was expecting and more! As a coming of age story and romcom, the colours and drawing were the most perfect for this graphic novel!
I am so glad to see more novels about transition and mostly something that is so accessible to young people. Bebe is looking for her own voice after transitioning. It's not easy when you have an overprotective family and have to fit everywhere. . I loved the support she gets from the girls of the cheerleading team and from Annie as well as from her family.
Annie is a total hurricane, she knows who she is and what she wants, but besides Bebe, she understands that always being alone is not as good as she makes it look. i think that both of them have fantastic growth and won't spoil anything, I totally loved this!

I was really excited when I got approved to receive an eARC of this graphic novel because I’ve heard quite a few people hype this book up, and it does deserve the hype. I think it truly captures the feelings and fears well of young LGBTQIA+ people in high school, and how you sometimes tend to tiptoe around people to keep yourself ‘safe’. Annie is a great representation of who I think a lot of us wish they could be like and I’m no exception.

There’s a line in the book where Annie explains that she really likes her combat boots because they make her feel huge and tough… Like a werewolf. And honestly, I’ve been thinking about that line ever since finishing the book. This book is a wonderful example of woman power. There’s very little male characters in this book and they weren’t missed, I must say.

It’s a quick and enjoyable read, and I would recommend it to anyone to read if you’re looking for something lighthearted but still so meaningful.

This was such a cute and sweet graphic novel! It definitely shines a light on the trans community and promotes love and support. I highly recommend it!

I LOVED this. Great representation and such an important graphic novel. Loved the elements of friendship and romance growing from being involved in cheerleading. SO timely and so important.

CWs: transphobia and transphobic comments, some fatphobic comments, and instances of sexual harassment

Queer sports comic starring sapphic cheerleaders and a transfemme MC? Yes please and thank you!

Cheer Up! is exactly the kind of comic that's perfectly suited for a visual medium. Not only does it showcase a Shineshine x Grumpy wlw ship dynamic, but it also normalizes fat bodies, brown bodies, and trans bodies in athletic spaces, which is incredibly needed. This is a story that's less about actual cheerleading and more about finding a sense of belonging, athletic teams functioning as found family and support systems, and learning how to socialize through organized sports. Though Bebe's squad doesn't always model perfect allyship, they accept her and support her and stick close to her in order to keep her safe in public spaces, and that's part of what makes her feel more confident in her own experience and expression of gender.

Above all else, I think this comic does a great job tackling discussions about hypervisibility for transfeminine folks, especially, and how transfemme people are often looked at and treated as spectacle rather than as individuals. Bebe fears not presenting in a hyperfeminine way because she's been conditioned to believe that presenting as anything less than "the perfect woman" makes her undesirable. She has a hard time confronting people, saying no, or standing up for herself because she doesn't want to be labelled as "aggressive" or "combative," especially when it already feels like people are "doing her a favor" by just letting her exist. The story really speaks to these unspoken standards of "perfection" that we hold trans people to, expecting them to perform to the extreme ends of the binary (whatever that means) in order for them to be "real," and not allowing them to make mistakes unless they prove themselves to be "one of the bad ones."

That's why I enjoyed the dynamic between Bebe and Annie, because through rekindling their friendship (and possibly more) Bebe is showing Annie how to be gentle, empathetic, and how to explore her own femininity, while Annie is showing Bebe how to be assertive, confident, and how to stand up for herself. It was nice to see their really sweet second-chance-friends-to-lovers dynamic blossom over the course of the story, and I was definitely cheering for them.

The only small set-backs for me were related to pace and story arc. Because comics are usually a faster-paced medium operating within a much smaller page count, some of the character development or realizations felt a bit sudden at times, which didn't allow for that full sense of satisfaction. And the other thing was that some of the side characters (both Bebe's own father and also her teammates) made some very pointed and anti-trans comments, and while they grow and learn over the course of the story, they're never made to account for those comments nor who how they reached those moments of growth. Overall, not anything that took away from my enjoyment of the story, but things that I would've liked to see explored further.

That said, if you're like me and you enjoy queer sports comics that are sweet, funny, and full of friendship, this is definitely one for you to add to your list!

A feel-good story for the LGBTQ teen community who love graphic novels.

Thanks to #NetGalley for a free ARC of #CheerUp in exchange for an honest review

AAHH this was so cute and fun, and yet managed to handle serious topics pretty well. i'm so happy to see more rep of Black trans girls in a coming of age story that doesn't feed into trauma porn that usually is added with Black characters' storylines. i hope a lot of people read it. made me so happy !

3.25 stars

thank you netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Cheer Up follows the story of Annie, an anti-social lesbian. She is abrasive and picks fights but has to change and make friends if she wants to get into a good college. Bebe is a trans girl. She hates to be the centre of attention but she always is because of who she is. Her parents are way too overprotective and she has a constant struggle between who she is and who everybody wants her to be.

Annie and Bebe are ex best friends who stopped talking for about two years (we were not given a reason why) but now, they are on the cheerleading squad together where Bebe stands up for Annie and that rekindles their friendship.

I think everything in the book was done very realistically with their struggles with being who they were and everybody around them reacting to it. but what I didn't like was that we didn't really get to see much or anything at all of their relationship. I would've really loved to see them become friends and then gradually fall in love but I didn't get that. Also, I felt many things were resolved too fast like her parents going from extremely overprotective to letting her go out right the next scene and also the whole Jonah thing.

nonetheless, it was an adorable, cute and fast read that I enjoyed and finished in one sitting.

A biracial sapphic trans main character who also happens to be cheer captain and treats everyone with undeserved kindness reconnects with a plus-sized steampunk lesbian who is always willing to say her opinion and stand up for what she believes in??? This is it. This is peak literature. I have ascended and I am now in sapphic sports girls heaven and I never want to return.

So what's it about? Cheer Up centres around a sapphic biracial trans woman (bebe) and a plus-sized lesbian (annie). Annie is very academically smart, but because of her anti-social nature and reluctance to join any clubs or communities, her applications to college look rather sparse, and so she is encouraged to join a club at her school, and she finds herself being directed toward cheerleading. It is here that she is reintroduced to the cheer captain bebe, annie's old friend. Despite having drifted away from one another, their familiarity remains, and their relationship really hits it off when bebe defends annie's right to join the cheer team against team members that harbour resentment towards her. it is not only in sports that bebe ends up helping annie. As bebe's niceness often causes her to be submissive and agree to things she doesn't want to do, annie increasingly encourages bebe to stand up for herself and be firm, while bebe likewise helps annie learn to put across her opinions without coming across as mean or hostile. Supportive sapphics, they truly want the world for one another.

The artwork in this is also truly stunning. The colours used blend so well and make it so very enjoyable to look at, and each of the characters look super unique and realistic. I enjoyed the racial diversity and thought that the representation is not only very wonderful and important, but also teaches the reader an important lesson about being trans, and being a supportive ally. It does this without presenting traumatic and triggering scenes, but by having the trans character speak for herself, rather than letting other people dictate what is and isn't okay to say to a trans person. By doing this, Frasier also educates the reader, which I am very grateful for.

Overall, this was the absolute cutest thing I have ever read. It was incredibly sweet and fluffy and I am completely sure that I am going to reread this a thousand times over. It felt like a warm hug telling me everything's going to be okay. I felt myself relaxing as I settled into the narrative, and it was so refreshing. Will just warm your heart.

The only minor criticism I have is that I wish it was longer so that the relationship between annie and bebe could've been more developed and drawn out. I recommend this with my entire heart, and I hope that everyone that reads this enjoys it as much as I did.

Queer Cheerleaders?!?!!! I’m in!

I have always been fascinated by cheer culture. I used to watch Bring It On all the time, could recite the lines as easily as breathing, and I devoured Cheer on Netflix. But I haven’t read a single Graphic Novel with cheerleading as the main focus. That changed today.

Bebe is the first trans girl to be chosen for the cheer team. Her parents are always afraid for her safety and are intensely overprotective.

Anne is abrasive, picks fights, and has no friends. But that has to change for her to be able to get into college. She’ll need extra curriculars for her transcripts.

The two used to be friends, but that was years ago. Now that’ll change when Bebe’s is chosen as cheer captain and Anne makes the team.

Let’s start with what I loved: The artwork is bright, colorful, and beautiful. The story has a Trans MC and a Lesbian MC, so we get a Queer love story all about cheer. There is also a Non-Binary character, that isn’t a central character who comes out towards the end. Also!!!! The ending left me smiling, which I always love.

Now, I was upset early on when a teammate made a comment about Bebe using her “man” voice, which isn’t addressed at all. BUT later they make another insensitive comment and Anne calls them out on it. Bebe then states how she can’t get upset about every insensitive remark, because people will think she’s the angry trans girl. So I’m happy that it was resolved and explained, but when I read it, I was PISSED!!!

Overall, I LOVED this book and can’t wait to get my hands on a physical copy.

Very heartwarming with likable characters. Loved the messages about believing in yourself, standing up for yourself and the importance of friendship!

<i>Thanks to NetGalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.</i>