(W) Jessica Campbell (A/CA) Jessica Campbell
It's the early 2000s. Lauren is fifteen, soft-spoken, and ashamed of her body. When her bible-thumping parents forbid Lauren to bring evolution textbooks home, she opts to study at her schoolmate Mariah's house. That evening Mariah gives Lauren a makeover and they have what becomes Lauren's first queer encounter. Jessica Campbell uses frankness and dark humour to articulate Lauren's burgeoning crisis of faith and sexuality. Rave is a coming of age story about the secret spaces young women create and the wider social structures that fail them.