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A review by booksoversecondbreakfast
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
challenging
lighthearted
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.5
For the most part, I really enjoyed this book, but there were some aspects of it that I didn't vibe with.
On the positive side, I really enjoyed how the writer communicated in the comic panes versus outside of the panes to communicate differnt but related information. I enjoyed the back-and-forth nature of balancing narration with commentary of the events. I also liked how the author's autobiography was told within the context of events taking place in queer U.S. history. I feel like this added a lot of depth to the story and helped me to understand the context of what went on, plus it taught me a bit too!
Furthermore, the thematic parallels drawn between the father's life, the author's life, and the stories were extremely intelligent and well thought out. I was very impressed by the author's way of capturing her relationship. She revealed her father's hurtful ane abusive sides, but also shared the aspects of him that left her feeling a great sense of gratitude towards him. I too have a father who was a bad man, but who passed along some characteristics that I'm grateful for, and the author elegantly captured the complexity that comes with this complicated experience, and I really treasured that about this book.
On the other hand, I felt like the book was just too intellectual and too smart for me. So many of the literary references went over my head, so I feel like I missed out on it potential depth. This is more of a me-problem than a problem with the book, however, so I can't be too critical of it. Still, this was a big way in which this book was just not 100% idea for me. Besides that, I wish I has more of a heads up that there were explicit sexual images in here. To each their own, but it's not my cup of tea and it just caught me off guard how much there was, so I wanted to give others a heads in case that's something they also want to avoid.
Overall, it was a really great, thought provoking book, and I enjoyed the read.
On the positive side, I really enjoyed how the writer communicated in the comic panes versus outside of the panes to communicate differnt but related information. I enjoyed the back-and-forth nature of balancing narration with commentary of the events. I also liked how the author's autobiography was told within the context of events taking place in queer U.S. history. I feel like this added a lot of depth to the story and helped me to understand the context of what went on, plus it taught me a bit too!
Furthermore, the thematic parallels drawn between the father's life, the author's life, and the stories were extremely intelligent and well thought out. I was very impressed by the author's way of capturing her relationship. She revealed her father's hurtful ane abusive sides, but also shared the aspects of him that left her feeling a great sense of gratitude towards him. I too have a father who was a bad man, but who passed along some characteristics that I'm grateful for, and the author elegantly captured the complexity that comes with this complicated experience, and I really treasured that about this book.
On the other hand, I felt like the book was just too intellectual and too smart for me. So many of the literary references went over my head, so I feel like I missed out on it potential depth. This is more of a me-problem than a problem with the book, however, so I can't be too critical of it. Still, this was a big way in which this book was just not 100% idea for me. Besides that, I wish I has more of a heads up that there were explicit sexual images in here. To each their own, but it's not my cup of tea and it just caught me off guard how much there was, so I wanted to give others a heads in case that's something they also want to avoid.
Overall, it was a really great, thought provoking book, and I enjoyed the read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia and Death of parent
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide