Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui

19 reviews

swimmingwolf59's review

emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

I think this is a really good book on the challenges of family and motherhood, and a really interesting look at a family escaping Vietnam during the war. The art is beautiful and haunting. But I definitely should've read the content warnings on this one lol. While I appreciate that pregnancy and childbirth and motherhood isn't like glorified in this, I also could've done without the 30 pages of graphic pregnancy at the beginning.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy and Infidelity

Moderate: Violence

Minor: Miscarriage

wanderlust_romance's review

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective fast-paced

5.0

What an amazing and moving memoir. Everything from the artwork to the deeply personal storytelling was engaging, thoughtful, and emotional. The art is a layering of ink and woodcut style drawings with undercurrents of brown and orange watercolors. It is a stark but not monochromatic depiction of scenes that aligns very well with the story being told. At its heart, The Best We Could Do is a story of parental and family relationships. The narrative’s opening scene depicting the authors traumatic birthing experience sets the tone for the rest of the book: this is not going to be a comfortable read. And indeed it is challenging. The birth scene brings the narrative full circle at the end, with deeply personal and resonating reflections by Bui on being a parent. The midsection of the memoir goes into depth on Bui’s parent’s experiences growing up in French colonial Vietnam and the ensuing geopolitical conflicts that ensued. Relaying the challenges experienced by their parents adds insight into their approach to parenting in the midst of the conflict and afterwards in their life as immigrants in the US. Through the gathering of this insight, it made me pause to consider how much one really knows their parents. Do I know who my parents are as people, in a vein outside of their relationship to me as a caretaker? Is it possible to separate what I know of them as parents to understand who they are in an independent context? While not explicitly noted in the text, these are also questions that Bui considers with depth in gathering their parents deeply personal and fraught histories. With this renewed insight into the Bui family’s history, Thi Bui reflects on their own journey as a parent. And at the end of such a deeply moving story, reminds readers of the refrain that many parents recognize in the challenges to raise humans. I did the best I could do.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War

Moderate: Medical content, Xenophobia, Abandonment, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, and Violence

Minor: Child death, Physical abuse, and Infidelity

drraytay's review

informative reflective sad fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Pregnancy, Domestic abuse, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Emotional abuse, Medical trauma, Infidelity, Death, Child death, Rape, Abandonment, War, Colonisation, and Miscarriage

Minor: Fire/Fire injury

kirkspockreads's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Gun violence, War, Violence, and Miscarriage

Moderate: Racial slurs, Murder, Infidelity, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Abandonment, Abortion, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Grief, Racism, and Pregnancy

distractible's review

emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Child death, War, Grief, Colonisation, and Pregnancy

Minor: Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, and Child abuse

okdupuy's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring fast-paced

3.5

i think it would have been more interesting if she focused on herself instead of her parents so much 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Grief, Colonisation, Death, Police brutality, War, Gore, and Infidelity

bg_oseman_fan's review

emotional informative reflective fast-paced

5.0

Through words and images, Thi Bui tells a story that is intensely personal and broadly impactful. This story is about the history of one country, and one family, but Bui’s artful and engaging storytelling brings everyone into the story. An exemplary example of the graphic novel memoir that any fan of the medium must read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Pregnancy, Death, War, and Medical content

Moderate: Miscarriage, Colonisation, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Classism, Infidelity, and Alcohol

readwithev's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Genocide, Miscarriage, War, and Violence

Minor: Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Infidelity, and Colonisation

careinthelibrary's review

challenging dark emotional informative slow-paced

I'm in the minority for not loving this! It didn't work for me, something about the jumping through time and character meant I never sank into the narrative of their lives fully before we were ripped away. Maybe that's the impression the author wanted to leave the reader with, I'm not sure. I'll seek out other books on this period of history! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Medical content, War, Death of parent, Child death, Death, Grief, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Gun violence, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Mental illness, Racism, Domestic abuse, and Murder

bookbuyingwithkatie's review

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Miscarriage, Abandonment, Xenophobia, Suicide attempt, Racial slurs, Pregnancy, War, Death, Child abuse, and Infidelity