Reviews tagging 'Adult/minor relationship'

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

155 reviews

kaetheluise_nckl's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Death, Outing, Death of parent, Sexual content, and Car accident

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Grief

Minor: Blood, Domestic abuse, Pedophilia, and Injury/Injury detail

OCD (mentioned briefly, undiagnosed)

lostinthelibrary's review against another edition

emotional funny reflective medium-paced

4.0

I don't read many memoirs and I've never before read a graphic novel so this was definitely out of my comfort zone!

I did take a bit of time to get used to the format. At first I felt like my eyes were darting all over the page and I was missing details, but once I got used to it I was able to really immerse myself in the story and reading became a lot more effortless.

This is a coming of age story focusing equally on personal identity and family relationships. It felt deeply personal and Alison did a great job at inhabiting her thoughts and feelings at various points in her childhood and young adulthood. Even though the timeline was non-linear, I never felt lost.

Of course, a lot of this was due to the illustrations. I was in awe of the perfectly struck balance between simplicity and detail and the way Alison subtly changed her characters to age them or represent a theme (e.g. her father as a greek god). It was all extremely clever and I'm sure if I thumbed through it again I would notice new details. 

I will say that some of the themes went a little over my head, Alison is clearly a voracious reader and makes frequent references to literature and I think if I had read more of the books she refers to I would have had a fuller experience of this novel. Interestingly two of the references were to books I have read this month (The Wind in The Willows and The Portrait of a Lady). There is also a lot left unsaid and that lack of closure may be frustrating to some. But hey, real life is rarely neat. 

Overall this was a very positive reading experience for me and I'm glad that I expanded my reading horizons. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Suicide and Adult/minor relationship

aliensmileyface's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Suicide, and Homophobia

Moderate: Pedophilia

annabunce's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Grief, Adult/minor relationship, Toxic relationship, Suicide, Sexual harassment, Pedophilia, Mental illness, Infidelity, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Child abuse and Domestic abuse

queenkath32's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent and Adult/minor relationship

aloevera's review against another edition

emotional reflective fast-paced

4.25

I may come back and give this 5 stars, regardless it is a lovely memoir that I would recommend to any queer person. I think it’s a great memoir for everyone to read and I really enjoy the unique use of the graphic novel format, but it will hit home for every queer kid who has navigated a complex  parental relationship. I don’t think this was even reflective of my excitement but it is so powerfully written, it just really kept me engaged from start to end. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Sexual content, and Suicide

kaimetcalfe's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Suicide, Death, Dysphoria, Infidelity, Adult/minor relationship, Domestic abuse, Sexism, Grief, and Mental illness

Moderate: Sexual harassment, Panic attacks/disorders, Lesbophobia, Homophobia, Violence, Sexual content, Alcohol, Biphobia, Bullying, and Drug use

Minor: Pedophilia, Stalking, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, and Alcoholism

myk_yeah's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

5.0

This was amazing, wow. You follow Allison through her childhood and learn about her relationships with her family members and see her grow into an adult who explores queerness and grief as part of her story. The story primarily focuses on her relationship with her dad. Ways it was difficult as a child, how she grows to try and understand him and her feelings towards him as an adult, the ways in which they mirror each other.
The comic was so engrossing and strong. I was so moved and touched by this book

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Moderate: Suicide, Sexual assault, Child abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Emotional abuse, and Mental illness

Minor: Body horror

dee_dreams's review against another edition

challenging reflective slow-paced

5.0

The complexity of the narrative and the breadth of topics that Bechdel breaches in her biography is truly astounding.  She demonstrates what my creative nonfiction writing professor meant when she said, "It's a paradox, but being more specific and more personal can help readers relate to your story more."

It is a graphic novel – wonderfully illustrated – but a challenging read due not only to the subject matter, but the allusions and analysis of existing literature.

Fun Home helps you understand not only what it is like to be Alison Bechdel, it reminds you that everybody else is living a reality with as much complication, personal meanings, quirks, desires, and traumas as your own. i.e., "sonder."

"The purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person" - Czesław Miłosz

Bechdel's frankness, courage, and creativity in telling her story her way is nothing short of inspiring.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Suicide, Death, and Death of parent

Moderate: Mental illness, Sexual harassment, and Sexual assault

krivas91's review against another edition

reflective slow-paced

3.5

3.5 stars? I always find it weird rating an author’s autobiographical content…but there’s still things that can be said. I appreciate the author’s extreme openness with her readers, and found it just really interesting to view her experience coming out as a lesbian while becoming aware of her father’s sexual activities and advances toward young men (teenagers), and figuring herself out as a child of two parents who did not outwardly/visibly show her love and affection hardly ever. 

However, there were so many times that the text was just so heavy (in the emotional sense, but also the literal-literature sense), and I found myself asking if we were even intended to read the images when she would picture mostly illegible letters by her father. 

Also, one review here noted the “references to classic literature that are carefully, artfully implemented and never daunting,” but I’d have to disagree; I understand that she connected to her father through literature and that’s why she included so much of it in her recollection, but I do think I felt like I was really missing something when I didn’t understand references or a few high-vocabulary words. I don’t think she could have written her way totally around that (or that she should have), but I do fear that some readers who could really use exposure to the coming out + family relationships content might be turned off of this book earlier on because of the dense presence of classic literature references.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual content, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, Car accident, Suicide, Lesbophobia, and Death