Foxes in Love, by Toivo Kaartinen

Review by Thurston Howl

For those who haven’t heard of Toivo Kaartinen’s delightful Twitter account @foxes_in_love, check it out! This book of the same name is the first volume of their compiled comics.

Foxes in Love is a comic series about a green fox (named Green) and a blue fox (named Blue) from Finland. If it wasn’t for one comic in the book indicating the couple is queer, there’s not much to gender the characters, making it very much a book for everyone. The comics follow the couple as they deal with anxiety, depression, tiny aliens also known as children, spicy food, an orange blanket, and, of course, love.

I enjoyed the comics long before Fenris Publishing compiled them all in this inaugural volume, so I was super excited to see it exist in print form, and it’s even more lovely getting to hold it in your hands and get a good couple cartoons per page. The formatting for the book stays in tune with the cutesy theme of the book, and it’s hard not to try to read it all in one setting.

I remember reading some of the cuter cartoons one night and getting really emotional. I left the living room to go cuddle my husband in bed while he was sleeping. He woke up and was like, “Hm? Everything okay?” And I said yes. Him: “Were you reading Foxes in Love again?” Me: “...shut up.”

You can read these cartoons out of order, too! There aren’t many recurring characters, and there isn’t much in the way of “plot,” per se. In some cases, it’s actually a critique for me. When I finished the book, I would have liked more of a sense of an ending, maybe even a letter from the creator or Green popping out at the last page to say thank you for reading or something. But for a first volume, this just hit all the right spots for me.

So, genuinely, if you’re the type of person to enjoy feel-good stories or funny interactions in a relationship that are #relatable, definitely pick this book up. It’s super sweet and adorable, and now I need to get my hands on the Green and Blue plushies that exist. Whenever I need a pick-me-up or a quick laugh, I know I’ll be opening this book up again for more foxes in love.