Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen

72 reviews

mattyb's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Religious bigotry, and Homophobia

Moderate: Blood, Grief, Violence, Murder, and Gore

Minor: Cannibalism and Death of parent

maple_dove's review against another edition

emotional hopeful relaxing medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I have to say--this is one of the most relaxing books I've read in a while (it's YA, no less!). Yet, somehow, it manages to beautifully discuss things like immigration, war (briefly), cultural barriers, homophobia, etc.

The art is beautiful and eye-catching. I loved the character designs too! The ending is fantastic and wraps up the whole book so well.

No matter what, I know I can't do this book justice, so I'm just going to encourage you to read it.

Favorite Quote:

"<My Vietnamese is weakening, every day. I'm changing.
My past and present selves speak two different languages.
It feels like I died on that boat. And I'm still stuck in the middle of the ocean.
Far away from my mother . . .
. . . and far away from my son.
I'm afraid Tiến doesn't think he can tell me things.
I'm sure he can feel it. I know I do.
And I wish it wasn't that way.

Did my mother feel that way? Did she feel like this all those years I was away?>"

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Child abuse

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Gore, Homophobia, and War

Minor: Physical abuse, Violence, Hate crime, Domestic abuse, Death, and Grief

Child marriage (Minor)

abookwormspov's review against another edition

emotional 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? No

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Blood, Cancer, Homophobia, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Cannibalism, Outing, Physical abuse, Bullying, Medical content, Body horror, Gaslighting, Grief, Chronic illness, Murder, Death of parent, Colonisation, Death, and Terminal illness

tilo's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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

5.0

Beautiful story - both visuals and narrative. I loved the way the fairy tales were woven into the story and I appreciated the afterword of the author explaining the choices made to the tales.
I found it fascinating how the story dealt with the issue of coming out. It was underlining the story and certainly was a driving force, but it showed a refreshing complexity around it. Although the author says that "language" was intended to be the focus, I felt there were many other intriguing and arguably more present key aspects such as grief that I was compelled to see play out in this heart-warming story.
The story of the mother was not "overshadowed" by the coming-out story of the son but had enough spotlight to show how guilt, diaspora, and feelings of displacement all make up an intriguing story of migration. I valued that a lot in this story as it gave a clear perspective on the parent's end without needing the (in my opiniom) overplayed and somewhat problematic trope of the parent who "just needs time" to figure out how to deal with the news of having a gay child. The mother's story, therefore, was captivating and to me, is the best part of the narrative.

The ending was perfect, showing a simple yet powerful way of showing acceptance to your kid despite having a lack of words or means to verbalize it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Death, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Grief, Murder, and Outing

Moderate: Body horror, Blood, Child abuse, Death of parent, Homophobia, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Domestic abuse

Due to the nature of fairy tales, this book has a bit of gore and some images could potentially be a bit too graphic for younger readers.

pikitat's review against another edition

emotional hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

This book was amazing. If you're going to read it, I recommend having a box of tissues on hand because this book made me cry so hard. (In a good way!) I can't recommend this book enough. The weaving of the fairy tales and the characters' lives is just brilliant. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder and Homophobia

pam_'s review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, and Cannibalism

Minor: Murder, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, Grief, Child abuse, Toxic relationship, Religious bigotry, Outing, Hate crime, Emotional abuse, and Violence

theworminbooks's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful inspiring reflective fast-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? No

4.25

This was a beautiful story on the life of a mother and son, navigating through their hardships and memories through fairytales from Vietnam. The comments on immigration, maneuvering life as a first gen kid and the burdens that come with that, along with the boy trying to find a meaningful way to come out to his mom while life seems to be going haywire were just amazing and honestly could have read even more about it. This just makes me feel so happy that young people have access to books like this (,:

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Death of parent and Murder

Minor: Hate crime

chaoticnostalgia's review against another edition

hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Death, Death of parent, Murder, and Animal death

Minor: Colonisation and War

treereadingabook's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Very very good

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Murder

sgrizzle's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful 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? No

4.0

A sweet graphic novel that primarily focuses on a Vietnamese immigrant to the US and her son. She is learning English and his Vietnamese is not as fluent as he needs it to be to share something about himself, so they connect through fairy tales. Along the way we get two versions of Cinderella (one DECIDEDLY darker) and a version of The Little Mermaid, all three conveying the words our main characters can’t say. I enjoyed the author’s note and the art process pages at the end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Homophobia