Checked Out [Paperback]

In which a queer library worker searches for love, artistic validation in New YorkCity, and the perfect book

An aspiring cartoonist and book lovin' lesbian, Louise works a dead-end day job at a shoe store, where she spends most of her time brooding over a coworker who will never quite love her back. By night, she works diligently and obsessively on her graphic novelthe true story of a carrier pigeon who rescued a battalion of soldiers in WWI.

When Louise unexpectedly lands a new job at a private library on the Upper East Side, she feels like her graphic novel will finally take offsurely the oldest library in New York has excellent holdings on pigeons and WWI. But what she finds in the stacks might be less revelatory than her discoveries between the sheets and buried in her own family history.

A graphic novel set against a perfectly cartoony NYC backdropcomplete with landmark haunts, street fashion, and quintessential characters of the cityChecked Out is at once a valentine to libraries and New York, and the story of an artist working to make her dreams come true. Drawn in a delightfully vivacious style, Checked Out buzzes with Katie Fricass vibrant energy, quick wit, and storytelling aplomb.
This book checked all my boxes: ComicsCHECK! HistoryCHECK! Library-loverCHECK! Obsessively talk about favorite topicsCHECK! Katie Fricas's disarming and charming style will pull you in and not let you go. Mimi Pond

Checked Out was so fun to read, it barely felt like reading at allmy eyes just kind of glided through the story. It reminded me about how joyful comics are to make! Tara Booth

Katie Fricas captures the romantic, vertiginous feeling of being young and searching in New York, and the joyful juggle of an artist's brainkeeping the past, the present, and the whlS.