Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

In Limbo by Deb JJ Lee

34 reviews

jialianyang's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Lushly illustrated, a pensive coming of age book that touches on belonging, mental health, friendship, family and art. Read this if you are ready to dive into a memoir that will demand empathy and holding space for swirling emotions.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Emotional abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Fatphobia, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Violence, Child abuse, Toxic friendship, Cursing, Suicide attempt, and Suicide

rogue_leader's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

4.0

Booktalk:

Caught between her American upbringing and her Korean roots, Jung-Jin Lee, who goes by Deborah, is struggling with transitioning into high school. She is struggling with a mother who has unrealistically high expectations and falters between supportive and abusive. Deborah ultimately discovers her love of art and makes a new friend. This book is sometime hard to read but is a powerful look into what being an immigrant and a high school student can be like.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Bullying, Suicide attempt, Physical abuse, and Xenophobia

jessoehrlein's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

3.0

 Covers Deb's high school years -- losing the home of music and finding visual art, navigating two very different friendships, struggling academically and with mental health. But mostly, this is about Deb's relationship to their mother and to how they're perceived; that's where this starts and ends.

There are some things that I feel like I missed. Kate says Deb blamed the suicide attempt on her, but when Deb first mentions this, they seem to be portraying this as a misunderstanding? ("My friend thinks...") There's a reference to apologies at a dinner that we don't see, and that feels like a big emotional beat here? But also all of this story is in Deb's pov, and so maybe being in their emotionality around all of this is more important.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide attempt and Physical abuse

ashleythebard's review against another edition

dark emotional funny informative reflective fast-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Physical abuse, Racism, Suicide attempt, Emotional abuse, and Mental illness

If you loved Ladybird, you will LOVE this.

mayashenoy's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad fast-paced

3.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt and Physical abuse

kitschysweater's review against another edition

emotional reflective tense medium-paced

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse

aibautista21's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Suicide attempt

bobabunnie's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

this book is gorgeous, and heart wrenching, and just so REAL. this book went way farther into the emotional moments than other graphic memoirs i’ve read, and i think it really does it well. started reading this in the middle of the night and couldn’t put it down, finished it at around sunrise. i do not regret it.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Suicide attempt, and Racism

lprongs's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

I'm glad this exists because I think the author needed to write it, and I think a lot of people probably need to read it. It didn't really click with me though - I struggled to follow the thread of a lot of the more jumbled panel compositions, and I often felt like I couldn't quite figure out what the author was trying to say/show, even when it felt very important. However, this book was not written for me.

I will also say that a lot of my own trauma from severe depression, a suicide attempt, and an unstable, formative relationship with my own mother informed a lot of my response to this book. It made me uncomfortable in a bad way and reminded me of things I'd rather stay forgotten. I think if I'd read this a few years ago, before I moved back in with my parents, I would have enjoyed it more. Now it's a little too close to home, and I think that prevented me from really sinking into it and understanding more of it as I kept a lot of it at arm's length in my head.

It was not an enjoyable read, and like most memoirs, it feels wrong to rate it. But I do think it's a valuable addition to the world: it introduces and discusses some very complex and important topics, the art was beautiful, and the inclusion of Korean was cleverly done.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Physical abuse, and Emotional abuse

librariana's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, and Racism

Minor: Bullying and Physical abuse