Reviews tagging 'Religious bigotry'

The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen

99 reviews

readingmushrooms's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Homophobia, Grief, Blood, Murder, Violence, War, Religious bigotry, and Death of parent

gimmiiie's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective 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

Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. 

Would recommend this for any one. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry, Terminal illness, War, Death of parent, Grief, Homophobia, and Outing

pastelkerstin's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Murder, Grief, Blood, and Violence

Moderate: Homophobia, Death of parent, Religious bigotry, and War

conversion therapy

mangooo_spagetti's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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? It's complicated

4.75

deserves all the recognition heartstopper gets as *The Emotional Queer YA Novel*

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Death of parent, and Homophobia

notapenguin's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death of parent, Religious bigotry, and Homophobia

ninahuynh's review

adventurous emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Such a nostalgic book. Growing up, I had watched and heard renditions of  Tấm Cám . This is definitely a different version from what I have heard and watched before in my childhood, but has that same element of gore in the end that Disney would not approve of. I found it warm how Helen changed the ending of The Little Mermaid to segue into showing Tiến how she supports and loves him. I love the áo dài  in Tấm Cám. Represent!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Homophobia, Murder, Violence, Blood, Child abuse, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, and Animal death

Minor: Religious bigotry

natcortes's review against another edition

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Grief

Moderate: Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Animal death, and Blood

olive_lol's review against another edition

emotional hopeful 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

4.5

This graphic novel is stunning. An unbelievable amount of detail is in every frame, and I especially liked how it uses colors to differentiate between the present, past, and fairytale sections. Each major character is thoughtfully crafted and feels real (even those in the fairytales), concluding in a heartfelt ending. It combines a family, fairytales, and Vietnamese culture into a story that leaps off the pages.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, and Homophobia

Moderate: Blood, Death of parent, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Cannibalism

northerndryad's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death of parent, Homophobia, and Religious bigotry

ellornaslibrary's review

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad 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? Yes

5.0

I had been looking at this graphic novel for awhile. The cover was always just so captivating it always drew my eye when popping up in recommendations, but I couldn’t get ahold of it at my library. Then I managed to get ahold of it this much just in time for a very important readathon - it is called Asian Readathon and is ran by Cindy (withcindy on YouTube); definitely check it out - and I’m so happy I was reminded of this book in time cause it is so, so good. Even made me cry a bit.

The art is stunning, and the way the stories of the mother and son are told through a mixture of their real world experience combined with the messages of fairytales is brilliant. I especially loved the information given by the author, Trung Le Nguyen, after the acknowledgements on his inspiration for both this important story he was telling as well as the comparison of graphic novels to a hybrid language.

I will give a warning though that as this is also a story about an LGQBTIA+ kid struggling with his identity in the 90s that there is a brief reference to the horrible, tragic murder of Matthew Shephard which was a big topic in the media at that time in regards to hate crimes and definitely relevant to the fears of coming out. There is also in regards to the immigration part of the story as far as mentions of loss of a parent & re-education(there might be some others I missed). I wanted anyone going into this graphic novel to be as informed as possible in case they aren’t able to handle it or need preparation to be able to do so.

Even so, I still think this is a beautiful story worth reading and highly recommend it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief

Moderate: Death of parent

Minor: Outing, Hate crime, Religious bigotry, Homophobia, and Colonisation

I wasn’t sure if there were content warning tags appropriate for the mention of re-education and having to flee your country the way that is depicted. If so, please let me know so I might add them to my review.