Reviews with content warning for Self harm - Maus: A Survivor's Tale. My Father Bleeds History

Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

Maus: A Survivor's Tale. My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman

7 reviews

lauren717's review

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dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.75

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totsfions's review

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dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

4.5

I have been meaning to read Maus for years. I've always heard great thing about it, but never actually picked it up. Finally I chose it to be a book discussion title for my library, as it seemed with the rise of far right extremism in the US, and with Maus in particular being the target of book banning's, now was the time to read it. It truly is a remarkable book. Spiegelman does not shy away from his father's less charitable traits, and the complexity this characterization lends to the story is vitally important. What this book does is remind you that the toll genocide takes on those who live through it lasts far longer than the violence itself. Its a fascinating exploration of intergenerational grief and trauma. No one has ever told me about the story-within-a-story aspects of this book, but I honestly don't think it would be as impactful if it was just a straightforward retelling of Vladek's experiences. I am looking forward to reading the second instalment.

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marissasa's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

This graphic novel is hard-hitting, emotional, and complex in every way. The Holocaust is always a hard topic to read about, and yet the comic format with Jewish people represented as mice, Polish people as pigs, and German people as cats presents a true narrative of a Jewish family's survival in a way that makes the atrocities they faced seem just as horrific as they were, but somehow also more digestible and readable. I very much admire Art Spiegelman's artistic choice to include imagery of himself at the present time of interviewing his father and the discussions they had about the experiences he would eventually turn into a comic, making the comic meta while also giving a chance to see what his father was like in the present in comparison to how he was in the past while living through life in Poland. The art itself is haunting but brilliantly done, filled with details and expressions of fear, surprise, grief, and more that you wouldn't expect to come across as emotional as they do when depicted on mice. I was interested in reading this book ever since I heard it made its way onto banned books list in America, and I am glad I read it because I now know how important a piece of work like this is in preserving history and personal accounts of the Holocaust, and how its uniqueness in presentation allowed discussions around the crimes of Nazi Germany to be more easily accessible and held especially among children just learning the history today.

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