Check, Please!: Book 1: # Hockey

"Confronted with the toxic masculinity that riddles sports practice and fandom, many women throw up their hands up and retreat. With Check, Please!, graphic novelist Ngozi Ukazu argues, very persuasively, that there is a different, better approach: Leaven that atmosphere by filtering it through an impossibly sweet, Southern figure-skater-turned-collegiate-hockey-star named Eric “Bitty” Bittle, who loves 1) baking and 2) Jack Zimmerman, his intimidating (and extremely handsome) team captain. Through Bittle’s eyes (and Uzaku’s adorable, manga-style images), the lumbering lunkheads of the Samwell University hockey team — and their homosocial bonding — are rendered precious instead of toxic, which turns out to be a very potent and comforting fantasy indeed."