Reviews tagging 'Genocide'

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui

8 reviews

koreanlinda's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring tense fast-paced

4.25

I felt lots of pain by reading this book. The book is ridden with violence that Thi's family experienced in Vietnam. Thi's mother is the one who gets lots of focus for her pain from repeated miscarriages as well as pregnancies and deliveries during the war. Although the story and graphics are compelling, I could not shed so many "whys" while reading it. Why did Thi's mother keep getting pregnant in environments where it's dangerous for the mother and baby? Why did Thi's father not take care of his children in the absence of Thi's mother? It is hard to blame anyone in the story because they are all victims of extremely traumatic experiences; however, I couldn't help but feel resentful for adults with responsibilities.

I learned a lot about what Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans went through in the last few generations. I recommend coupling this book with Year of the Rabbit by Tian Veasna, which talks about a painful part of Cambodian history around a similar time as this book. 

Review by Linda (Any Pronouns) in Feb 2024
Personal essays on DefinitelyNotOkay.com
Artwork on Instagram @KoreanLinda


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aleighc's review

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challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

5.0


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readwithev's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

4.5

Bui is poetic and lyrical. The voice bubbles are not too full and crowded; you get all the information and emotion for the scene. I love the water color painting, ink, pen, paper texture, etc art style. The white, crème, black, and red with only blue at the beginning and end elevated some scenes with blood, explosions, clothing etc.
Bui talks about how challenging it was to get to know her parents, but she uncovers their origins and begins separating her expectations of them. It felt very healing and vulnerable. Bui delves into her childhood and the things she’s still healing from and beginning to see in differently now that she’s a parent.

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alysereadsbooks's review

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challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.25

achingly raw and beautiful exploration of parenthood as the child of an immigrant. 

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booksandboba's review against another edition

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emotional informative reflective sad fast-paced

4.5


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carmentxx's review

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

this book had me tearing up like hell. as the daughter of vietnamese immigrants myself, the constant questions of identity and belonging really hit home. the drawings are beautiful and the art style really emulates the level of pain and confusion felt throughout war. this book has made me want to learn more about my own past. an excellent introduction into the refugee complex, the vietnam war and just an overall beautiful and heartbreaking story and family, hope and loss. 

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kathis_wonderland's review

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui shows her life. Born in Vietnam, Thi and her family had to flee the war there. Reflecting on her family's decisions and taking a look at her parents’ lives, Thi is searching for her family’s history and her heritage.
 
This is my first graphic novel. It is quite a different reading experience than reading a book without illustrations, but I enjoyed it. I learnt a lot about Vietnam's history, which was really interesting. The mixture of personal story and history was awesome. I keep thinking about using this memoir in my history classes at some point in the future. It just gives a different point of view on the events than there is in the history books. The memoir also illustrates perfectly how your parents' trauma can affect your own life. I discovered that there is a teacher's guide, discussion questions and a pronunciation guide available on Thi Bui's website. Reading through some of the questions helped me to understand the book more and reflect on the story.
 
I find it difficult to write a review about a memoir that tells a personal story about someone's life. However, I really liked this book and learnt a lot while reading it. It educates the reader about historic events and at the same time, shows multi-generational struggles. To be honest, this book is quite a masterpiece that can be used in education. 

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brookey8888's review

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challenging dark informative inspiring sad medium-paced

3.0

I did enjoy this and learn things, but I just felt like the story telling was a little confusing at first. It also didn’t get into the history till later, which is fine because this is her family history, but it talks about motherhood and I don’t really care about that. 

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