4.5* I enjoyed this a lot. Very beautiful palette. Really well-defined, believable characters. Interplay of the games of the fledgling women's basketball and the off-court relationships was very well done. Recommended. ( )

This was an ok read. The illustrations were beautifully drawn and each color matched the tone of the scene. The stories were all over the place, no closure for some. Left it as if there could be a sequel? ( )

Gorgeously drawn with a loose line and a vibrant color palette, "A Map to the Sun" captures a dream-like Southern California vibe that stands in sharp contrast with the very real issues Leong's "wrong-side-of-the-tracks" female teen protagonists face. Leong balances the girl's interpersonal struggles with the story of their rag-tag basketball team, whose games Leong captures with kinetic and graceful lines. ( )

A diverse group of high school girls, all with various family and personal problems, flounder around for the first 100 pages or so before being drawn together into a basketball team that flounders around for another 200 or so pages. Teamwork, friendship, personal breakthroughs, rah, rah, rah.

There are many good elements here, in what wants to be a low-key, slice-of-life teen drama, but the story was in need of focus and tighter editing. And a professional colorist.

The coloring was atrocious and distracting if not actively working against the story. It's basically a two-color system -- so everything on a given page is, say, either blue or green -- but the color register changes randomly every few pages so now suddenly everything is purple or salmon, then orange and indigo, etc. I could see doing this if the color schemes related to games vs. practice vs. home life or distinguished focus on the different characters, but, no, none of that. A consistent color scheme throughout the book would have been helpful in a story that revolves around a sporting team that wears uniforms and plays against teams that should be wearing different colored uniforms. (Sometimes, the two teams' uniforms are colored the same on the same page!) Also, some of the characters look very similar and confusion might have been minimized had they been given consistent hair colors or skin tones.

For a more humorous and better colored take on a women's basketball team, try The Avant-Guards, Vol. 1. ( )