Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

14 reviews

jamiee_f's review against another edition

dark emotional funny medium-paced

5.0

I had heard of Alison Bechdel and Fun Home but had never read this. It was a shocking delight. It's beautifully written and constructed, and I wish there was more. The way she moves through time and reveals the story and the truth of her life and family piece by piece is incredible and compelling. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Lesbophobia, Sexual harassment, Suicide, Sexual assault, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, and Homophobia

Minor: Sexual content

haileyhardcover's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

I don’t know how to rate this book, so I simply will not. Did I enjoy reading it? No, not particularly. It is awkward, painful, and unnecessarily sesquipedalian. Is it also incredible? Undoubtedly, yes. 

The amount of TIME that must’ve gone into writing - or more specifically DRAWING - all of this is mind blowing. With a cursory glance, one might look at Bechdel’s artistic style and think it unoriginal - similar to so many other comics we’ve seen before. But I beg you to look longer. Look at the detail; not in EVERY panel, but so many of them. Look at all of the WORDS. There are so many words - beyond the captions and the speech/thought ballons, so often the art of the panels themselves are just words - snippets from letters, journals, books, newspapers, court records, or the dictionary… and it’s all hand drawn?! I can’t begin to imagine how much time this would take… 

Fun Home is not fun. I cannot say I enjoyed reading it, but I also absolutely cannot deny that it’s a masterpiece. I have no idea how they could’ve turned this into a musical… 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Body horror, Death, Death of parent, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Medical content, Child death, Gore, Grief, Sexual content, Emotional abuse, Car accident, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Medical trauma, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Sexual assault and Pedophilia

avidales's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Grief, Homophobia, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Infidelity, Lesbophobia, Car accident, Cursing, and Death of parent

Minor: Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, and Physical abuse

bgoodbookclub's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

I don’t know anyone else who has read this book so I don’t have anyone to talk to about it so I think I’ll have to really think about it for a while to decide what I thought!

I really liked the format of this book, especially because it’s so unique to an autobiography! It’s also very honest which I really liked.

I both liked and was confused by all of the literary references. I enjoyed them but I also haven’t read any of the books referenced so they confused me at times and I had to re-read some passages.

I was very intrigued by Bechdel’s complicated relationship with her family, especially her dad and how she wrote about it. It’s very difficult to feel completely one way about a family member (good or bad), especially in Bechdel’s situation. I’m glad that she was honest about both parts through her writing, his problems and complications and also her good memories. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Sexual assault and Pedophilia

sammyelliott_'s review against another edition

emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Mental illness, Lesbophobia, Infidelity, Homophobia, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Car accident, Cursing, Dysphoria, Infidelity, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Suicide, Domestic abuse, and Sexual assault

Minor: War, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, and Drug use

There are multiple references to grooming of young boys by older men. There is one chapter which specifically discusses obsessive-compulsive behaviour with very detailed descriptions of the reasons and effects on her.

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

beata's review against another edition

 Maybe I didn't pay close enough attention to the blurb, but when I read that the father was gay, I did not expect to see in the book itself that he slept with "boys" aka his high school students. Then I immediatly thought oh, he killed himself because the truth was out and he was facing charges. But no, he maybe killed himself because his wife was finally fed up and asked for divorce. He was even facing charges years before, on surface about giving alcohol to minor but if the author is to believed with unspoken accusation of at least soliciting minor (maybe even full on sexual assault). 
The story is messed up on many many levels. First, her father was himself sexually abused as a child. Then he went on to do this to others. Then we learn that his psychiatrist very possibly had an affair with him during court mandated appointments?! Of course I also can't forget physical abuse of his own children. And last but not least was the author glossing over the abuse her father inflicted on others. 
I'll be honest with you, I've read graphic novels a lot longer than this one, and they felt shorter.
I will not rate it, lately I'm more reluctant to rate non-fiction, especially of the memoir kind. Who am I to say if someone's life story is a 3 or 5 star?
This will definitely stay with me, though not necessarily in a good way. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Car accident, Child abuse, Death, and Death of parent

Minor: Sexual assault and Adult/minor relationship

abbyb23's review

challenging dark emotional fast-paced

4.0

Bechdel is a great writer and the illustrations are really well done, but in some ways the message of the book felt lacking. Bechdel speaks about her father in a tongue in cheek way when talking about his crimes and flaws, which to me felt a bit understated. Although this bittersweet view of him is a good representation of the complicated feelings toward any flawed family member, it’s just a bit too forgiving to me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Suicide, and Death of parent

Minor: Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, and Child abuse

This is a very trauma filled book, with very highest portrayals of the aftermath of that trauma.

thesuperkim's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Car accident, and Death

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Suicide, Alcohol, Lesbophobia, and Infidelity

Minor: Toxic relationship, Sexual assault, Homophobia, and Body horror