Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen

21 reviews

michaelion's review

emotional inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Trung Le Nguyen you have a fan in me for life for the art style alone. It felt like I was watching a film. It's so vibrant! For life!!!!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, and Outing

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Death of parent, Abandonment, and War

Minor: Incest and Cannibalism

bexi's review

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Toxic relationship, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, and Murder

Minor: Animal death, Domestic abuse, Cannibalism, and Abandonment

indeedithappens's review

emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

lex_is_bookish's review

adventurous emotional hopeful fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Blood, and Death of parent

Moderate: War

Minor: Domestic abuse

maple_dusk's review

emotional hopeful relaxing medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I have to say--this is one of the most relaxing books I've read in a while (it's YA, no less!). Yet, somehow, it manages to beautifully discuss things like immigration, war (briefly), cultural barriers, homophobia, etc.

The art is beautiful and eye-catching. I loved the character designs too! The ending is fantastic and wraps up the whole book so well.

No matter what, I know I can't do this book justice, so I'm just going to encourage you to read it.

Favorite Quote:

"<My Vietnamese is weakening, every day. I'm changing.
My past and present selves speak two different languages.
It feels like I died on that boat. And I'm still stuck in the middle of the ocean.
Far away from my mother . . .
. . . and far away from my son.
I'm afraid Tiến doesn't think he can tell me things.
I'm sure he can feel it. I know I do.
And I wish it wasn't that way.

Did my mother feel that way? Did she feel like this all those years I was away?>"

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Murder

Moderate: Gore, Homophobia, Religious bigotry, and War

Minor: Death, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Violence, and Grief

Child marriage (Minor)

tilo's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Beautiful story - both visuals and narrative. I loved the way the fairy tales were woven into the story and I appreciated the afterword of the author explaining the choices made to the tales.
I found it fascinating how the story dealt with the issue of coming out. It was underlining the story and certainly was a driving force, but it showed a refreshing complexity around it. Although the author says that "language" was intended to be the focus, I felt there were many other intriguing and arguably more present key aspects such as grief that I was compelled to see play out in this heart-warming story.
The story of the mother was not "overshadowed" by the coming-out story of the son but had enough spotlight to show how guilt, diaspora, and feelings of displacement all make up an intriguing story of migration. I valued that a lot in this story as it gave a clear perspective on the parent's end without needing the (in my opiniom) overplayed and somewhat problematic trope of the parent who "just needs time" to figure out how to deal with the news of having a gay child. The mother's story, therefore, was captivating and to me, is the best part of the narrative.

The ending was perfect, showing a simple yet powerful way of showing acceptance to your kid despite having a lack of words or means to verbalize it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, and Outing

Moderate: Body horror, Child abuse, Homophobia, Blood, Religious bigotry, and Death of parent

Minor: Domestic abuse

Due to the nature of fairy tales, this book has a bit of gore and some images could potentially be a bit too graphic for younger readers.

pam_'s review

dark emotional hopeful sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, and Cannibalism

Minor: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, and Outing

emily_mh's review

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

This graphic novel was so incredibly clever. The way the fairytales Tiến and Helen tell each other are tied into the narrative not only to reflect particular events but, as the author points out, more overarching themes of immigration. The way the fairytales are used to communicate ideas between the characters - this really highlighted the power of stories. And the fairytales were fantastic in and of themselves! The author also explains so many layers of meaning that I missed my first time reading, so I think this is one of those books where you’ve got to reread to pick up on all the nuances. For example, he discusses how imagery of the fairytale being told changes based on who is narrating, which blew my mind when I flicked back through the book. I could just tell that so much thought and detail went into expressing the story.

At its core this book is about a mother-son relationship which it displays impeccably. The love and the care Tiến and Helen had for one another! Their desire to understand and be understood! I especially loved that Helen was included as a character in her own right, as it is rare for a mother-figure to have this. This inclusion brought the theme of a two-sided relationship to life as both sides of the story were shown.

The art was gorgeous. There was super effective use of colour in that only three were used (in different tones) so as to demarcate parts of the book: red for the present, blue for fairytales, and yellow for the past. The detail of the clothing and hair of the characters was wonderful.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Grief, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, and Murder

Minor: Gore, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Torture, Medical content, and War

Moderate: the refugee experience, sick loved one, loss of a loved one, forced separation from family, death of pet Minor: child bride, drowning

isotope_s's review

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

The way that Nguyen converts emotion on the page is unmatched. There is a sense that these are real people living their lives, not a character arc to pick apart—which is why I feel it’s not fair to judge it based on “character development”.

Most of the content warnings are applied due to the fairy tales Tiên and his mother read together; they do not happen to the actual characters

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Content Warnings

Minor: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Violence, and Death of parent

thewordsdevourer's review against another edition

emotional hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

the magic fish is a heartfelt, gorgeously drawn graphic novel that explores the immigrant experience and uses fairytales to bridge the cultural and language barriers of coming out.

the art is wonderfully detailed (the hair esp, and the dresses) and i like how nguyen uses 3 color palettes to differentiate between the settings. what amazes me the most, however, is the ingenious composition and structure that play off the art and word bubbles, flowing very smoothly. 

in terms of story, the internal journeys of tiên and his mom form the crux of it, the former w/ his gay identity and the latter w/ her immigrant experience. there's not a lot going on esp interspersed w/ the fairytales (each of which is variations of a country, which is interesting), but the pace is relaxing and it's great that there's no unnecessary tension aside from the aforementioned characters' struggles. i do wish, however, that the ending - as touching as it is - was longer, as rn it's too abrupt.

all in all, this is a great graphic novel w/ both great art and story, and i certainly hope to read more of nguyen's work.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Murder

Minor: Homophobia, Death of parent, and Outing