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A review by fishky
The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen
5.0
Its hard to know what to say here because it is a simple story.
The Story:
Immigrant family, mother emotionally relates to her son through fairytales from her youth, son is struggling to fit in and come out to his parents as his mother plans to finally return home to see her own mother — but after years of planning, she's (just barely) too late. Meanwhile, her son dances with one of his best friends & his crush, who expresses that he knows the son's feelings and, even if he doesn't return them romantically, doesn't feel like the revelation impacts the love and respect he has for him as a friend. Some nosy asshole teachers essentially push the son into a religious conversion therapy kind of deal and its through their snitchery that his mother learns that he's gay. She doesn't seem to know what to say, and he's very worried, but she tells him a version of The Little Mermaid where the mermaid's love for the prince charming or whatever isn't reciprocated, the object of her affections is in love with another woman, and then — she herself ends up with this woman. Acceptance!
Additional thoughts:
It was a book about variations of stories to communicate empathy that was itself a variation of a story that successfully delivered its emotional payload. Beautiful art, bittersweet, and then lovely.
The Story:
Immigrant family, mother emotionally relates to her son through fairytales from her youth, son is struggling to fit in and come out to his parents as his mother plans to finally return home to see her own mother — but after years of planning, she's (just barely) too late. Meanwhile, her son dances with one of his best friends & his crush, who expresses that he knows the son's feelings and, even if he doesn't return them romantically, doesn't feel like the revelation impacts the love and respect he has for him as a friend. Some nosy asshole teachers essentially push the son into a religious conversion therapy kind of deal and its through their snitchery that his mother learns that he's gay. She doesn't seem to know what to say, and he's very worried, but she tells him a version of The Little Mermaid where the mermaid's love for the prince charming or whatever isn't reciprocated, the object of her affections is in love with another woman, and then — she herself ends up with this woman. Acceptance!
Additional thoughts:
It was a book about variations of stories to communicate empathy that was itself a variation of a story that successfully delivered its emotional payload. Beautiful art, bittersweet, and then lovely.