Reviews with content warning for Death - The Magic Fish

Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen

112 reviews

cateyeschloe's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-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? No

5.0

This is such a great book!

The Magic Fish is a graphic nov, and I absolutely love the art style! Its movement and flow is breathtaking, and the color schemes for each arch of the story is such a clever choice.

This is an endearing story about a young boy who realizes he is gay and his journey in coming out to his parents.

I would absolutely recommend!

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abookwormspov's review

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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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tilo's review against another edition

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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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pam_'s review against another edition

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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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theworminbooks's review against another edition

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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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