Hello and welcome to The Great BCB Reread!
I’m reading every single page of Bittersweet Candy Bowl from Volume 2 onwards... again! And seeing how it holds up. I’ve been a fan of the comic for as long as I can remember.
Starting Over
Starting Over begins with Jessica and Rachel being complete strangers to the rest of Daisy’s friends, which gives an easy way to introduce the rest of the cast to us.
A lot happens on this page. They establish 1. That Rachel and Jess have beef with Tess. 2. That Tess is now dating Paulo. 3. That Rachel thinks Paulo is attractive.
A lot of information about these characters comes in very quickly and is reinforced over the next 3 volumes of comic. It’s a good start.
Daisy/Abbey in the very early stages. She’s clearly a lovestruck teen who can’t help thinking about her childhood crush. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t care for Abbey but, the poor girl is clearly torn. The power of foresight lets me tell you this is only the beginning of her troubles...
Daisy doesn’t even know the half of it
Rachel goes on to say Paulo wants to bone Mike long before Paulo KNOWS if he does or not. Day. Fucking. One.
Lucy’s interance is a clear show of her tough-girl facade. She tries to get Mike to pay attention to her and is instantly brushed off. An outstanding allegory for their relationship.
An early display of Paulo being protective of Lucy. Starting Over is a very good display of SHOWING us character relationships. It does a little bit of telling, but only enough to make sure you are not entirely lost. The rest of it is things like Paulo’s clenched fists, Lucy’s dejected gaze. It reminds you what it was like to be a highschooler.
I do, however, think the elaboration on Daisy and Augustus’s time together is a little too much telling.
Jessica tells Lucy she’s cool right away... god, I love these two. (As we go on, you’ll notice that Jessica has a type.)
I’m a big fan of how the chapter closes itself out. After Lucy is left on her own by Jess and Rachel, she just thinks about everything she DIDN’T tell them because she didn’t want to. The transition to her lying in bed shows that it troubled her for the rest of the school day. It gives her emotional baggage some weight.
We’ve all been where Lucy’s been before. Thinking way too hard about someone you don’t think cares for you. Someone you did a lot for.
It’s a beautiful beginning to a very long story.
