librarymouse's review

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emotional funny reflective slow-paced

4.5

This collection of comics is eye catching, tender, and incredibly vulnerable. It's a quick read, but what I really want to do with it is read it while wrapped around it under the blanket with a flashlight, curling back the pages in a way that breaks the spine, like I did with my books as a child. This collection tastes of nostalgia, and makes tangible the feeling of liminality when you're young, unmoored from home, and can't go back.

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u_0's review

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adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

3.0

I enjoyed it and I'm glad I read it! Nothing wrong, just wasn't my favorite.

The cons:
- I guess it just doesn't resonate with me too much since I've already moved past growing up in an unaccepting family and longing for a home country.
- A lot of the panels or stories kinda repeat the same message or thought.
- The title was a little misleading for me since I thought this was going to be an uplifting book.
- the art style was cool and very creative at times but the color palette, line thickness, and minimal shading weren't that pretty to me

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nikmalikov's review against another edition

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emotional reflective

2.75


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readingwithkt's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

Swithered between giving this 4 or 5 stars so I'm going to sit on it and see how I feel about it over time.

My immediate feeling is that this is a beautiful graphic novel that explores identity, belonging, family ties, and mental wellbeing. The graphic novel is compiled of various short comics which build out an overall narrative of a queer Chinese immigrant in the USA, finding their place in their new home and feeling out their identity (loved the comic on the boxes we fit in/choose).

So many of the comics in this memoir-esque graphic novel really moved me - definitely one I'd like to buy and reread (I read a library copy).

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