This one’s on me. I should have known from the author’s “lesbian Heated Rivalry” comp-pitch viral tweet that something wicked this way comes. I understand marketing is a necessary evil—especially for emerging artists—but surely, there are some decent sapphic romance titles that would have made for a more fitting comparison. Anyway, we digress. I have always had a weakness for sapphic webtoons, yuri manga and graphic novels, particularly ones with an artstyle this pretty, and do savor a good lesbian rivals-to-lovers storyline. So, when I picked up Adeline Kon’s 2026 YA debut graphic novel Just Between Us, I wasn’t exactly expecting to experience a tectonic shift—just a youthful, charming sports romance, marked by the slow build-up from animosity to romantic tension between a pair of rival figure-skating sapphics.
The premise is certainly interesting: set in the highly competitive, glittery world of figure skating, the novel follows the journey of Lydia Chen, a Chinese American prodigy figure skater looking to compete in the Olympics. The only daughter of a middle-class single mother, Lydia has a lot going on in her life: intense training, competing, financial problems regarding sponsorships, and worst of all, her own obsessive drive for perfectionism. On the rink, she prioritizes rigor and stone-cold technique over sentiment or fun (and here one must commend Kon’s ability to depict fluid movement on paper; Lydia’s performances are lovingly depicted through lyrical, dreamlike sequences of black-and-white images reminiscent of the images flashing in a zoetrope).
Overall, there’s no questioning her sheer talent—for years now, Lydia has held the No. 1 rank in her category globally. And yet, the combined pressure of constantly navigating an intensely competitive environment and being weighed down by the expectations of her demanding coach and her strict mother have taken a heavy toll on the 18-year old athlete, mentally and physically.
Then, the unthinkable happens. Elaine Yee, a rival skater from Malaysia starts training at Lydia’s rink. Now, there used to be a time when Lydia had idolized the older woman, full of awe and wonder at her graceful movements on the rink. Since then, however, much has changed. Elaine’s place on the ranking charts has significantly dropped, and after she essentially snubbed Lydia at an event several years ago, the latter stopped looking at her all starry-eyed, and instead has grown to regard her with distaste. So, when the two begin training under the same coach as opponents for the upcoming Olympics, there’s the inevitable bad blood between them.
Yet, the prickly Lydia cannot help but marvel at Elaine’s genuine love for the sport, even with her imperfect technique and recent losses on the rink. What the Elaine lacks in rigid precision, she makes up for with her passion and expressive, emotional movement. Further, over the coming days, Elaine herself seems to be trying hard to extend an olive branch after their past misunderstanding. Gradually, what began as enmity evolves into a begrudging, yet genuine friendship between the two talented young skaters, as they simultaneously bicker, banter and learn from each other. But when Lydia makes a startling discovery about her new opponent-turned-friend, these feelings grow even more complicated–and troublesome.
Judging from the blurb and marketing, I guessed the story would be less romance-heavy, and focus more on racism, homophobia and unhealthy standards of perfectionism in the world of competitive sports, as well as the overarching theme of balancing career, ambition, and artistry. That in itself is quite fine with me. I’m pretty neutral about romance in sapphic books, as long as the other story elements are substantial or interesting enough. My main problem with the book is that it tries to do too much—and yet, it ends up doing far too little, that too on a very superficial level.
We have seen this story play out before: the perfectionist, having fallen out of love with the job that used to captivate them, meets a free-spirited, not-so-rigid newcomer who is set up as their rival—but also, psychologically and emotionally, a guiding light to revive their passion. In fact, the immediate comparisons that come to mind when reading this novel aren’t Heated Rivalry (everyone, please, let’s get serious!) but sports anime like Yuri on Ice, and my personal favorite: Sk8 the Infinity, which has a startlingly similar premise when it comes to skating, ambition, homoerotic rivalries, pressure versus motivation, etc., but handles all these issues infinitely better. Where Just Between Us could’ve found its real strength was the emotional core of the novel; foregrounding the struggles of Asian and Asian American women in competitive sports, it could have really delved into the toxic standards, misogyny and gendered expectations imposed upon female athletes. As an ultimate act of resistance, centering a sapphic love story would thus challenge the censuring gaze of family, critics, spectators, and media alike.
Instead, we have some spectacular examples of missed opportunities. Firstly, Lydia’s insecurities on the rink are never fully addressed with the intent to heal, and her ultimate ending—after 300+ pages of alienation, dejection, and mental and physical torment—is underwhelming, even disappointing. Her racialized identity is brought up more often as a “gotcha” when it comes to her obnoxious behavior around her peers, particularly her supposed best friend Helen, the coach’s daughter (more on her later). The book also incorporates one of my least favorite, yet far-too-frequently recurring trope in YA fiction: Lydia’s mother is posited as this helicopter parent throughout the novel, directly contributing to her daughter’s mental health struggles, only for a last-minute conversation, half-hearted apology, and an “Aw shucks, you had it that bad? I thought you loved it, why didn’t you tell me?” absolving moment that carefully sidesteps any and all uncomfortable emotions. Are you telling me this adult woman needs her barely-adult, clearly emotionally fragile daughter to explicitly spell out that she is not doing well, after years and years of declining passion? Like, come on, there could be so much depth here, such excellent grounds for talking about immigrant identity and intergenerational struggles, especially. Do something, allow for a difficult confrontation, not just a misunderstanding fixed by a hug.
Further, Lydia’s mother is also her stylist, sewing super-frilly, feminine outfits for her performances. Metaphorically, on the ice, the athlete armors herself in deceptive visuals: the daughter her mother wants her to be, not who she is. I thought there was some great opportunity to explore Lydia’s tomboyish gender presentation off-rink, and how her masculinity is associated with an unpalatable, darker and “grumpy” personality, while Elaine’s consistently hyper-feminine presentation lends credence to her charm and popularity; the latter is literally represented by sunshiny yellow and a White Swan-esque character design. No such thing happens, obviously, even if there’s a scene where Lydia tears apart her dress. The black-and-white contrasting outfits are just that: superficial and overused grumpy cynic/sunshiny idealist visual markers.
Speaking of Elaine, she might be the most frustrating character in the book. Presented simultaneously as a love interest and as a troubled character in her own right, Elaine starts out strong: she is a closeted lesbian, and struggling with public perception, versus her deteriorating private life. Of course, we go nowhere with that; her break-up with her non-athlete girlfriend happens off-page, so the reader doesn’t feel too morally conflicted about her almost immediately succeeding feelings for Lydia. The homophobia and d-slur flung at her by a cartoonish bully (tellingly, a Russian character) is only fuel for Lydia to step in and heroically save her, and her Malaysian identity isn’t particularly relevant, except to tutor others on the politics of privilege. This book has some of the most simplistic explorations of marginalized identity I’ve seen in a while. Anyway, after a bit, you can practically see panel-by-panel where Elaine’s journey is headed, and her ending, much like Lydia’s, is more frustratingly predictable than nuanced, although for different reasons.
I must also mention that there is brief physical violence between the leads: during a particularly nasty argument, Elaine slaps Lydia—this is frequently brought up later, as a joke. Now I’m not rigid about these things; I like messiness and visceral emotion in my sapphic fiction (and God knows there’s a lot of aggressive emotions condensed into competitive sports), but still, given the overall cutesy tone of the story and promotional material, this random scene feels jarring, and may affect some readers.
Finally, I’ll bring up this one last thing pertaining to Helen, Lydia’s best friend—really, her only friend—and daughter of the coach who trains both the leads. It troubles me a lot that practically none of the reviews on Goodreads or otherwise have spoken about this, so here it goes: towards the end of the story, Helen is revealed to be a trans woman. This reveal is placed strategically after a confrontational scene between her and Elaine, where the former tries to act in her capacity as a good friend and firmly warns the latter against sabotaging Lydia, for Elaine has the safety net of financial affluence, which the younger skater lacks. To this, Elaine reacts in an unnecessarily smug and rude manner, and says she will not “accept a lecture about privilege from a white girl”. I cannot help but wonder at this bizarre choice of scene from a TME non-binary author, setting up the sole transfem character as a scapegoat for a “privilege” speech from a cis woman, in what Kon no doubt visualized as a girlboss takedown.
As it were, Helen’s character is not done justice. We are repeatedly told she has a negligent mother, who clearly sees her as inferior and treats Lydia as her real mentee, daughter and successor; this “real daughter” dilemma has significant added implications with Helen being trans, except that’s never addressed, except to be mocked by Lydia in some sarcastic banter. The reveal is also last-minute (and rather unsubtle, focusing on physical details) almost so as to avoid giving time and space to the transfeminine representation. It’s rather insidious that in a story where marginalized identity is used frequently as leverage—Lydia’s rudeness is understandable because she is an Asian athlete under pressure, Elaine’s avoidance is perfectly rationalized because she’s a closeted lesbian—the transfem character (who is also bisexual and thus, multiple marginalized) has to check her privilege and is given no respite.
In conclusion, I return to the Heated Rivalry pitch tweet, mismarketing (or overmarketing?) and the problems of reducing what could be a nuanced story to easily packaged micro-tropes and surface level exploration of heavy themes. Just Between Us starts out strong, but—ironically mirroring its lead—this graphic novel is far too obsessed with ticking all the correct boxes for tropes, motifs, identity politics and character archetypes, and thus unable to pull off an actual, sincere sports romance rooted in an emotionally resonant, multilayered narrative. Always glad to see BIPOC lesbian representation in tradpub, but unfortunately, I didn’t love this one. I can only hope that other readers will enjoy it more.
RATING: 3 stars
TRIGGERS: transmisogyny (covert, not addressed), lesbophobia, pressure to come out, usage of d-slur (not by leads), physical violence (between leads, poorly resolved), controlling parents, depiction of injury during an event, mental health struggles and feelings of inadequacy
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