Scan barcode
Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'
Maus: A História de um Sobrevivente. I, O Meu Pai Sangra História by Art Spiegelman
33 reviews
ehmannky's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Antisemitism, Genocide, Violence, Gun violence, Death, and Death of parent
Moderate: Mental illness
rtaire's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
5.0
Support banned books!
I definitely recommend most everyone read this book (and the second volume). It's a beautifully nuanced memoir of a holocaust survivor and the complicated relationship between him and his son, the comic artist writing/drawing the book. Glad I read the book now when I am struggling with all the grey space of my own relationship between myself and my mother. Makes me feel more at ease about the lack of clear distinctions of "morally good" and "bad", the messy in-between of reality.
The art style really helped to put some distance between me and the extremely difficult subject matter of the Holocaust, which allowed me to keep reading when I might have otherwise needed to stop to preserve my mental health. Still, some of the images are truly haunting and it helps to be prepared to know that these books cover the worst of what humanity is capable of. I still think it is very worth it to remember these atrocities, especially at a time when people are trying to erase them and ban important books like this.
I definitely recommend most everyone read this book (and the second volume). It's a beautifully nuanced memoir of a holocaust survivor and the complicated relationship between him and his son, the comic artist writing/drawing the book. Glad I read the book now when I am struggling with all the grey space of my own relationship between myself and my mother. Makes me feel more at ease about the lack of clear distinctions of "morally good" and "bad", the messy in-between of reality.
The art style really helped to put some distance between me and the extremely difficult subject matter of the Holocaust, which allowed me to keep reading when I might have otherwise needed to stop to preserve my mental health. Still, some of the images are truly haunting and it helps to be prepared to know that these books cover the worst of what humanity is capable of. I still think it is very worth it to remember these atrocities, especially at a time when people are trying to erase them and ban important books like this.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Alcohol, Genocide, War, Suicide, Sexual harassment, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Physical abuse, Murder, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, Gun violence, Death of parent, Violence, and Sexism
marywahlmeierbracciano's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Violence, War, Death, Grief, Hate crime, Antisemitism, Child death, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Murder, and Racism
Moderate: Suicide, Ableism, Classism, Death of parent, and Mental illness
Minor: Cancer and Excrement
author2223's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Mental illness, Antisemitism, War, and Genocide
thyroyalreader's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism, Hate crime, and Death
Moderate: Mental illness, Child death, Suicide, and Cursing
Eye opening and a descriptive read. I read before getting into my classes unit on WW2, so expanded upon the more personal experience side of what happened during the Holocaust.thewordsdevourer's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
3.5
even though the book's subject has been done countless times, maus somehow feels even more harrowing than most because of its characters' depiction as mice, cats, and pigs..like a graphic novel version of orwell's 1984. It was surreal seeing the spiegelmans disappear to the nazi's atrocities one by one. also appreciate the author's realistic and humanistic portrayal of his father.
despite being about an event that has been told in various forms countless times, this book still manages to be shocking, jarring, and evocative through the personal tale that illustrates people as complex beings and very impactful drawings. drawing the characters as animals is such a simple method, but it's surprisingly effective.
despite being about an event that has been told in various forms countless times, this book still manages to be shocking, jarring, and evocative through the personal tale that illustrates people as complex beings and very impactful drawings. drawing the characters as animals is such a simple method, but it's surprisingly effective.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse, Body horror, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Religious bigotry, Violence, Confinement, Death, and Antisemitism
Moderate: Mental illness, Physical abuse, Suicide, Child death, Death of parent, and Grief
plxtoprojector's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Antisemitism, and Suicide
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Physical abuse, and Mental illness
Minor: War, Death, Child death, Racism, Grief, Cursing, Death of parent, and Murder
essiecorn's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism, Genocide, and Suicide
Moderate: Death
Minor: Mental illness
erine's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.75
I've read these books so many times at this point, but with a book like this it lands a little differently each time. As a kid, it was a thrilling, realistic, horror-filled tale of history. I could imagine myself doing the right thing, or being clever enough to survive the deprivations and tragedies. I read it as a comfort, confident that these horrors would not happen again. As a grown-up, I read it in the full knowledge that humanity's depths are never fully plumbed. People never get tired of cheap tricks for power, of diminishing another's humanity in order to reinforce one's own worth, of sowing chaos for pleasure. And while I also know that there will also always be beacons of humanity's light, people willing to take risks both big and small to help others, who will always reinforce another's humanity, the weight of the former knowledge is heavy.
What I like about this narrative is that it shows not only what happened during the Holocaust, but simultaneously tells of the contemporary relationship between father and son. In this context, the two timelines are somewhat reassuring: the Reader knows that Vladek will not die because he is here before us, telling his son his story. But he still has to pass through the horrors. The back-and-forth has the added benefit of showing the Reader what happens to history: how much is forgotten or lost. Art listens to his father's story, but also hungers to hear what his mother's experience would have been like. In our current time, as Holocaust survivors are lost to old age, this lesson of history hits hard.
By depicting each person as an animal, Spiegelman offers the tiniest distance between the Reader and reality. The book comes across as fantasy, to a degree, with the cats chasing the mice and the dogs coming in later to fight the cats. But the underlying tale is stark and depressing, and despite the cute animal faces, every piece of tragedy is clearly communicated. There is no mistaking the pain and suffering, even on a mouse face.
What strikes me as I'm reading this now is how lucky Vladek was. There's no questioning his intelligence and competence, but over and over and over and over again, he is saved by pure chance. A gun pointed at his head, only to have his name recognized; running into a person by chance on the street who can hide Vladek and Anja; even his bad luck ends not in immediate death but in imprisonment. In the United States, where rugged individualism and personal accomplishment is so highly prized, there's no doubt many readers who will hear Vladek's tale and think, "how clever, no wonder he survived." But there's absolutely no doubt reading his words that his sharpness only got him so far, and pure luck combined with the help of others also carried him through.
In the end, this is a highly accessible story of the beginnings of the Holocaust, as well as a clear-eyed story about the relationship between an aging father and his son.
Note: reference to depression and suicide, and Holocaust violence including executions and child abuse.
What I like about this narrative is that it shows not only what happened during the Holocaust, but simultaneously tells of the contemporary relationship between father and son. In this context, the two timelines are somewhat reassuring: the Reader knows that Vladek will not die because he is here before us, telling his son his story. But he still has to pass through the horrors. The back-and-forth has the added benefit of showing the Reader what happens to history: how much is forgotten or lost. Art listens to his father's story, but also hungers to hear what his mother's experience would have been like. In our current time, as Holocaust survivors are lost to old age, this lesson of history hits hard.
By depicting each person as an animal, Spiegelman offers the tiniest distance between the Reader and reality. The book comes across as fantasy, to a degree, with the cats chasing the mice and the dogs coming in later to fight the cats. But the underlying tale is stark and depressing, and despite the cute animal faces, every piece of tragedy is clearly communicated. There is no mistaking the pain and suffering, even on a mouse face.
What strikes me as I'm reading this now is how lucky Vladek was. There's no questioning his intelligence and competence, but over and over and over and over again, he is saved by pure chance. A gun pointed at his head, only to have his name recognized; running into a person by chance on the street who can hide Vladek and Anja; even his bad luck ends not in immediate death but in imprisonment. In the United States, where rugged individualism and personal accomplishment is so highly prized, there's no doubt many readers who will hear Vladek's tale and think, "how clever, no wonder he survived." But there's absolutely no doubt reading his words that his sharpness only got him so far, and pure luck combined with the help of others also carried him through.
In the end, this is a highly accessible story of the beginnings of the Holocaust, as well as a clear-eyed story about the relationship between an aging father and his son.
Note: reference to depression and suicide, and Holocaust violence including executions and child abuse.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Mental illness
leahsbooks's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
5.0
I’ve heard so much about this book, and have been meaning to read it for years. I finally decided to do it, even though reading Holocaust memoirs is especially difficult for me, as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. This book was doubly difficult, since I could see so much of my father in Vladek, and I could also see echoes of myself in Art as well.
The first thing that I noticed, and chuckled about a little, was the way that Vladek’s English syntax was captured so accurately. My father was also from Poland, and would explain that sentences are structured differently in Polish, Yiddish, German, etc. I could actually hear my own father speaking the same way when I read Vladek’s imperfect English, which made perfect sense to me:
“And all from us what weren’t injured they marched over to their side of the river to look for dead soldiers.”
While I’ve read a lot of Holocaust memoirs, this is the first time I’ve ever seen one in graphic novel format. I think it makes the story accessible to a wider range of people, and separates it from other memoirs. Both the graphic novel format and the portrayal of people as animals, with the Jewish characters pictured as mice and German characters as cats, made this story stand out. It highlighted the harsh reality of living as a Jew under Nazi rule, while softening the story in a way.
The story bounces between time periods. The majority of the story involves the experiences of Vladek and his wife, Anja, as their freedoms and rights are slowly stripped away just because they are Jewish. They are forced to make decisions with no positive outcomes, where either choice could be the one that gets you killed:
“To go, it was no good. But, not to go — it was also no good.”
I loved that the author didn’t sugarcoat his difficult relationship with his father. Both characters were portrayed as flawed humans, and thus realistic. Yes, Vladek went through horrific circumstances, but he wasn’t a saint. He had his own issues, including racism. Growing up as the child of a survivor comes with its own baggage as well, and it seems like many of the survivors that I’ve met struggle with hoarding things, especially food. It can be very frustrating to deal with, and the trauma from the Holocaust has been shown to affect future generations as well. Art depicted a strained relationship characterized by his feeling short-tempered and often lashing out at his father, who only wanted to spend time with him. I felt for both parties, and it made me reflect on my own relationship with my father while he was alive. I also identified so much with Art’s sentiment when he expressed this feeling:
“…I did have nightmares about S.S. men coming into my class and dragging all us Jewish kids away… I guess it’s some kind of guilt about having had an easier life than they did.”
These two books affected me deeply, and I got so attached to the characters, especially Vladek. Even though I knew what was going to happen, I still prayed for a miracle, and cried while reading. The love between Vladek and Anja was incredible. No matter how many memoirs I read about the Holocaust, I’m always surprised at how different each person’s experiences during and after the war are, but what I’m never surprised by is how deeply each person and their families are affected. This isn’t by any means an easy read, but it’s so worth it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism, Suicide, Mental illness, Death, Genocide, Violence, and Child death