Booklist review of Heaven No Hell

DeForge has a knack for cartoonish exaggeration in his artwork, and this collection of short comics takes that to new heights. Social interactions, emotions, genre conventions—all are pulled to compellingly absurd degrees. In “My New Stepdad Is a Disgusting Bug, and I Hate Him,” the narrator’s stepdad is literally a bug, and her larval stepsiblings clutter up the full-page scenes. “Album,” told in structured panels in sepia tones, is bittersweet, touching on nostalgia, grief, and regret in a series of snapshots from the past and future: “Here’s my mom forgiving me for all the trouble I caused”; “Here’s my mom looking over our dying solar system.” The final story, “Soap Opera,” is a comical standout, escalating a man’s abandonment of his wife until he’s in love with an entire state’s voting body. DeForge’s art style varies, sometimes using straightforward, simplified forms; elsewhere, faces and bodies are stretched and distended as if made of Silly Putty. Though the experimental, outré tone of these stories might not have broad appeal, for the right reader, they’ll push all the right buttons. — Sarah Hunter