Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen

70 reviews

emily_dunn's review

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Cannibalism, Murder, and War

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Grief, and Death of parent

lightningmc_logyn's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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? It's complicated

5.0

I am blown away. This is now one of my favorite books of all time. The visual and textual story are breathtaking. The author really understands the medium and the power of graphic novel storytelling, as self-stated in the authors note end of the book. It’s woven together so beautifully. It is heartbreakingly profound and emotional. I was very moved by Tiên and Helen’s stories. The bond they have is beautiful. It was so raw and vulnerable. The art was simply beautiful, the line and color work amazing. It is powerfully delicate. It is inviting and detailed. The composition of each panel was purposeful and communicated the story perfectly. I particularly loved when only a sliver of something was shown in the panel-a wonderful use of spacial storytelling. I was shocked, moved, filled with joy and fear and tenderness and love while reading this book. I borrowed it from the library but I know I must own it someday. I wish I could put this book in the hands of every person on earth and have them read it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Emotional abuse, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Outing, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Homophobia and War

Minor: Hate crime and Colonisation

All the listed content subjects are handled seriously and with care in the book. The tone is very much one of accepting painful life experiences and turning to loved ones to guide eachother.

gillianengelbrecht's review

emotional hopeful reflective 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Religious bigotry and Outing

Minor: Animal death, Blood, Cannibalism, Abandonment, and War

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

tinysierra's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful fast-paced

• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

Beautiful storytelling.

I loved the use of color!
Past = yellow
Present = red
Fairytale = blue

If you like The Magic Fish, you might also like Lunar New Year Love Story which features Vietnamese characters and also uses color in an interesting way. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, and Murder

Minor: Religious bigotry

tinkeringcheck's review

challenging emotional reflective sad slow-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? It's complicated

3.5

Beautiful and surprisingly layered intergenerational story woven between fairy tales and a real family, but I personally should've minded the content warnings. All of the fairy tales have a more Grimm than Disney edge (and the author's note in the end about their influences was fascinating), but one in particular went pretty dark with animal death, cannibalism, abuse, and murder. Still, the art and story are gorgeously done even if it didn't end up being for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Homophobia, Blood, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Violence, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, and Outing

Minor: War

frantic_vampire's review

emotional lighthearted 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? It's complicated

5.0

This was a lovely, heartwarming read. The mix of fairytales and immigrant family life and coming out in a time when it wasn’t always excepted, were so brilliantly swirled together. The visuals were stunning and the story flowed so beautifully from one fairytale to another. It was so cool to see all of these stories that are so familiar to me through a different lens and different cultural interpretations. I loved this so much and it’s getting five stars from me!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Grief, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Animal death, Blood, Cannibalism, and Death of parent

hickorynut's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

This was an exquisitely illustrated story of a modern family telling stories that combined elements of Vietnamese folklore with the stories of Cinderella and the Little Mermaid. Tien's mother Helen is a Vietnamese immigrant who uses reading out loud to help her converse with her son growing up in America with English as his primary language. The stories of both Cinderella and the Little Mermaid reflect the journeys of each modern family member and the family's immigration story.

The mythological elements were stunning and had a twisted darkness to them. At times I did wish there was a little more depth and emotional processing by all the characters, modern and mythological. But overall the stories were beautifully woven and a lovely read.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death

avethebrave's review

challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Homophobia, and Outing

Minor: Death of parent

tinyjude's review

dark emotional lighthearted reflective fast-paced

• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

A really beautiful book that focuses on the relationship between a mother and her son, language barriers, feeling isolated and not truly belonging to one place due to forceful migration and colonisation; and how they are able to understand and support each other through fairy tails such as Cinderella and The Little Mermaid. It was beautiful and fascinating to see the different depictions of the same tale depending on the cultural context. The colour palette was used with such creativity, helping the reader identify the past (yellow), the present (red) and the stories within the main story (blue) with complexity and beautiful details. I found myself instantly attached to the characters and the story. It was beautifully crafted and it couldn't come to me in a most precious and sad time to help me too.

The tale she narrates to her child at the end couldn't have been better. I was sobbing and wrecked. So touching.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Homophobia, Murder, and Outing

Moderate: Genocide, Xenophobia, Grief, Colonisation, and War

Minor: Gore and Blood