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swimmingwolf59's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
I think this is a really good book on the challenges of family and motherhood, and a really interesting look at a family escaping Vietnam during the war. The art is beautiful and haunting. But I definitely should've read the content warnings on this one lol. While I appreciate that pregnancy and childbirth and motherhood isn't like glorified in this, I also could've done without the 30 pages of graphic pregnancy at the beginning.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pregnancy and Infidelity
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Miscarriage
wanderlust_romance's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
What an amazing and moving memoir. Everything from the artwork to the deeply personal storytelling was engaging, thoughtful, and emotional. The art is a layering of ink and woodcut style drawings with undercurrents of brown and orange watercolors. It is a stark but not monochromatic depiction of scenes that aligns very well with the story being told. At its heart, The Best We Could Do is a story of parental and family relationships. The narrative’s opening scene depicting the authors traumatic birthing experience sets the tone for the rest of the book: this is not going to be a comfortable read. And indeed it is challenging. The birth scene brings the narrative full circle at the end, with deeply personal and resonating reflections by Bui on being a parent. The midsection of the memoir goes into depth on Bui’s parent’s experiences growing up in French colonial Vietnam and the ensuing geopolitical conflicts that ensued. Relaying the challenges experienced by their parents adds insight into their approach to parenting in the midst of the conflict and afterwards in their life as immigrants in the US. Through the gathering of this insight, it made me pause to consider how much one really knows their parents. Do I know who my parents are as people, in a vein outside of their relationship to me as a caretaker? Is it possible to separate what I know of them as parents to understand who they are in an independent context? While not explicitly noted in the text, these are also questions that Bui considers with depth in gathering their parents deeply personal and fraught histories. With this renewed insight into the Bui family’s history, Thi Bui reflects on their own journey as a parent. And at the end of such a deeply moving story, reminds readers of the refrain that many parents recognize in the challenges to raise humans. I did the best I could do.
Content Warnings
Graphic: War
Moderate: Medical content, Xenophobia, Abandonment, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, and Violence
Minor: Child death, Physical abuse, and Infidelity
xoxo_biz's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.75
drraytay's review against another edition
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Pregnancy, Domestic abuse, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Emotional abuse, Medical trauma, Infidelity, Death, Child death, Rape, Abandonment, War, Colonisation, and Miscarriage
Minor: Fire/Fire injury
laurenj1398's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
tense
fast-paced
5.0
This was my first foray into graphic novels and it has utterly blown me away. The amount of emotion portrayed in this novel is unparalleled. The writing coupled with the imagery really makes you feel the intensity of the Vietnam War and the depth of emotions of each family member.
I highly recommend this novel to anyone is looking for a graphic novel to read.
I highly recommend this novel to anyone is looking for a graphic novel to read.
verytwilly's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
I appreciated the way the history and context is brought into the narrative so the reader more fully understands the story while also being educated about what happened.
mehsi's review against another edition
3.0
I received this book from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.
This is what I expected: An intimate and poignant graphic novel portraying one family’s journey from war-torn Vietnam, from debut author Thi Bui. In the end those expectations came true, but it took quite a long time for that to be fulfilled. I almost thought it wouldn't happen.
Well this turned out to be better than it was in the beginning. As soon as the stories about Vietnam really took flight, and we saw their journey out of Vietnam it started to get better and better. Still I won't rate this high because I was bored for at least 1/3 of the story.
And really, one birth is more than enough for me, I don't need to see x numbers of gruesome labours. I know it was needed to tell the whole family history, but really. Eventually I started to think the births would just continue all the time.
Also everything was just so mixed together, I am sure it is supposed to make sense, but it was jarring for me to see how we went from present, past, past, present, semi-present, past again and then it stayed past. I know she is interviewing her parents, but still it was a bit jarring.
I didn't quite like the parents, with how they treated their kids (especially when they had boyfriends, I know different values and ideas, but really it just made me want to scream at my screen) nor did I quite approve of the dad's way of raising his kids, if you would call it that. There is something highly wrong if one of your kids hides in a closet for hours, holds his bowels so he doesn't have to poop/pee. And then the other kid is learning all about supernatural stuff and disturbing imagery. What?
Later on, during the Vietnam parts I did see that they were good parents and that thanks to all the things they went through they had their own stiff standards and were still solely focused on impressions and surviving, but those parts of the US had already coloured my view of them.
But I have to say that in the end it was still quite a beautiful memoir. It was sad, it was heartbreaking, it was lovely.
The illustrations were quite nice, and they fitted perfectly with the story. Plus I liked the colourscheme of white and orange.
However I just can't rate this one higher than 2.5 stars.
Review first posted at https://twirlingbookprincess.com/
This is what I expected: An intimate and poignant graphic novel portraying one family’s journey from war-torn Vietnam, from debut author Thi Bui. In the end those expectations came true, but it took quite a long time for that to be fulfilled. I almost thought it wouldn't happen.
Well this turned out to be better than it was in the beginning. As soon as the stories about Vietnam really took flight, and we saw their journey out of Vietnam it started to get better and better. Still I won't rate this high because I was bored for at least 1/3 of the story.
And really, one birth is more than enough for me, I don't need to see x numbers of gruesome labours. I know it was needed to tell the whole family history, but really. Eventually I started to think the births would just continue all the time.
Also everything was just so mixed together, I am sure it is supposed to make sense, but it was jarring for me to see how we went from present, past, past, present, semi-present, past again and then it stayed past. I know she is interviewing her parents, but still it was a bit jarring.
I didn't quite like the parents, with how they treated their kids (especially when they had boyfriends, I know different values and ideas, but really it just made me want to scream at my screen) nor did I quite approve of the dad's way of raising his kids, if you would call it that. There is something highly wrong if one of your kids hides in a closet for hours, holds his bowels so he doesn't have to poop/pee. And then the other kid is learning all about supernatural stuff and disturbing imagery. What?
Later on, during the Vietnam parts I did see that they were good parents and that thanks to all the things they went through they had their own stiff standards and were still solely focused on impressions and surviving, but those parts of the US had already coloured my view of them.
But I have to say that in the end it was still quite a beautiful memoir. It was sad, it was heartbreaking, it was lovely.
The illustrations were quite nice, and they fitted perfectly with the story. Plus I liked the colourscheme of white and orange.
However I just can't rate this one higher than 2.5 stars.
Review first posted at https://twirlingbookprincess.com/