Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

230 reviews

gussurireads's review

challenging emotional funny medium-paced

5.0

I was drawn to this because Bechdel is famous for, well, the Bechdel test, and as a queer woman who loves stories centered on women and their relationships with other women, that test is very important to me.

So I went in completely blind. Mind you, I am fan of graphic novels. I don't read a lot of memoirs, though. But Alison Bechdel writes and draws a compelling, honest and yes, at times pretentious, story of her bizarre family, drawing parallels between herself, an out and proud lesbian, to her closeted, deeply repressed father.

It's not the kind of graphic novel that you breeze through in a couple of hours. It took me a few days of carefully going through this and still there's so many references that eluded me, what with me not being an English major or a very cultured reader (I enjoy my fantasy, ok?)

Still, so much of Allison's story resonated with me, as most queer stories do. The act of discovering a new part of ourselves, coming to terms with it, rejoicing in this newfound identity, is quite possible the most universal queer experience of them all, and Bechdel is a master at embellishing her own experience. Like father, like daughter, indeed. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide, Sexual content, Grief, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, and Car accident

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Homophobia

teddybo's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide and Sexual content

Minor: Pedophilia

jamieruwen's review against another edition

emotional funny reflective medium-paced

5.0

I mean, you don't need to tell me you that Fun Home is an outstanding piece of literature. It's a remarkable comic-memoir, a coming of age as much as it is a grief novel as much as it is a reconciliation with the father Alison Bechdel knew as a child and the man he turned out to be, as it is a reconciliation of her self with her father's self. Some panels nearly moved me to tears because they were so brilliantly composed (Alison and her father standing in front of the mirror before the wedding!). This might become one of those books that I'll reread every year, it's probably  one of those where you find something new in it every time you read it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Infidelity, Death of parent, Physical abuse, and Suicide

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship

Graphic: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Mentioned: Child Sexual Abuse. Alison's father has "relationships" with teenagers and was sexually abused himself. However none of the affected characters express any negative feelings towards those experiences.

becksusername's review against another edition

emotional reflective fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Car accident, Dysphoria, Infidelity, Adult/minor relationship, Mental illness, Alcohol, Homophobia, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, and Suicide

phdyke's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide and Death of parent

babbieabbi's review against another edition

challenging sad medium-paced

3.5

I really feel for Alison and all the other people depicted in this book. She clearly has very complex feelings about her family, and it definitely makes me reflect on my own family dynamics. Although there are many many differences, the mixed emotions are portrayed extremely well. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Homophobia, Suicide, and Death of parent

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

alexisgarcia's review against another edition

dark reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

i think some topics weren’t explored enough, but the story was important and the art style was really nice

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Grief, Alcohol, Infidelity, Death, Outing, Suicide, Death of parent, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, and Mental illness

greta_dn's review against another edition

funny reflective sad

4.5

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Content Warnings

Minor: Suicide

arieljade21's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide and Sexual content

Minor: Pedophilia and Infidelity