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A review by gussurireads
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
challenging
emotional
funny
medium-paced
5.0
I was drawn to this because Bechdel is famous for, well, the Bechdel test, and as a queer woman who loves stories centered on women and their relationships with other women, that test is very important to me.
So I went in completely blind. Mind you, I am fan of graphic novels. I don't read a lot of memoirs, though. But Alison Bechdel writes and draws a compelling, honest and yes, at times pretentious, story of her bizarre family, drawing parallels between herself, an out and proud lesbian, to her closeted, deeply repressed father.
It's not the kind of graphic novel that you breeze through in a couple of hours. It took me a few days of carefully going through this and still there's so many references that eluded me, what with me not being an English major or a very cultured reader (I enjoy my fantasy, ok?)
Still, so much of Allison's story resonated with me, as most queer stories do. The act of discovering a new part of ourselves, coming to terms with it, rejoicing in this newfound identity, is quite possible the most universal queer experience of them all, and Bechdel is a master at embellishing her own experience. Like father, like daughter, indeed.
So I went in completely blind. Mind you, I am fan of graphic novels. I don't read a lot of memoirs, though. But Alison Bechdel writes and draws a compelling, honest and yes, at times pretentious, story of her bizarre family, drawing parallels between herself, an out and proud lesbian, to her closeted, deeply repressed father.
It's not the kind of graphic novel that you breeze through in a couple of hours. It took me a few days of carefully going through this and still there's so many references that eluded me, what with me not being an English major or a very cultured reader (I enjoy my fantasy, ok?)
Still, so much of Allison's story resonated with me, as most queer stories do. The act of discovering a new part of ourselves, coming to terms with it, rejoicing in this newfound identity, is quite possible the most universal queer experience of them all, and Bechdel is a master at embellishing her own experience. Like father, like daughter, indeed.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide, Sexual content, Grief, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, and Car accident
Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Homophobia