When you think you live in a Norman Rockwell painting—married 18 years, three kids, beautiful old house in the country, successful career as a writer—you don’t expect there’s another side to the canvas. Until you read a lovesick e-mail to your husband . . . that didn’t come from you! Good Riddance is an honest and funny graphic memoir about suffering through and surviving divorce. New York Times bestselling author Cynthia Copeland chronicles the deep pain, confusion, awkwardness, and breakthroughs she experiences in the “new normal” as a wife who’s been deceived, a mom who’s now single, a divorcée who’s dating, and a woman who’s on her own figuring out what she truly wants from her life. Copeland tells her story with an emotional candor and spot-on humor that makes Good Riddance poignant, painful, and hilarious all at once.

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Using the graphic novel / memoir format, Cynthia Copeland unveils the story of her marriage of 18 years, and the subsequent divorce after discovering her husband had been unfaithful. Copeland shares her story with readers a decade after things first went down, but some of the emotions that are wrapped up in such an event prove universal and timelessly relatable. 

Copeland explains the guilt she had to learn to work through, coming from a family where no one had divorced before, as well as the secret stress and anxiety she shouldered while trying to protect her young children from the truth of why mom and dad weren't going to live together anymore. 

This story is no different from other divorce memoirs you've read in the way it conveys that there are no real winners in this kind of life upheaval. Copeland paints her husband as a selfish, immature man possibly suffering a mid-life crisis. Trying to recapture his youth yet still keep close to his wife, his actions were that of someone trying to have their cake and eat it too. He seemed more concerned with being "cool dad" than responsible grown up. Copeland makes it clear she wasn't having it, but at the same time some of her actions towards him struck me as tiptoeing into control freak territory. or such a tough topic, the choice of cool blue-grey tones on the art were strangely calming. Don't know if that was intentional or not... regardless, it was kinda nice, diffused the tougher moments a bit. The blue tones combined with the art style itself ... something about it brought to mind vintage hospital pamphlets! 

I read this for one of my summer classes. We had to read and annotate 10 comics/graphic novels. Here's the annotation I wrote for that class:

The Best We Could Do tells the story of Thi Bui’s family from their lives in Vietnam to their time as refugees in Malaysia to their resettling in the United States all framed by the story of Bui’s journey into motherhood. The result is both a specific, personal reflection of the author’s own family and a larger, more universal search for identity and belonging.

Bui utilizes one single color throughout the entire story. The red she chooses moves between seeming harsh, angry, and dangerous to soft, warm and welcoming. Sometimes it floods the entire page while at other times it is very contained, highlighting one specific moment, one person, one element on the page or in the panel.

In the book, Bui searches for the truth of her parents and their lives and only has their stories to guide her. There are many interesting uses of panels and the gutter throughout the book. The more innovative pages seem to be emphasizing the fact that these are impressions rather than literal interpretations of the past. An inanimate hand reaches across the gutter ominously. A boat drifts into a panel from an undefined place. Family memories are layered over images of war, unrest, and change occurring in Vietnam.

Even though The Best We Could Do was only published last year (2017), I can see it securing a spot in the graphic novel canon and being read for many years to come.

When I first saw the cover and description for Bui Thi’s graphic memoir, The Best We Could Do, I immediately added it to my list of future reads. It looked like the kind of graphic novel that would move me and leave me wanting more. And while there’s a good story in here somewhere, this book didn’t resonate with me like I’d hoped.

The story at the center of The Best We Could Do, the story of a family emigrating from Viet Nam, is a good story. It includes a lot of dramatic turns and is often heartfelt. The characters were interesting, especially those closest to the author-narrator. The art was only okay, but this isn’t ever a huge factor in my opinion of a graphic novel.

I think the problem I had connecting with the story had to do with presentation: the pacing, the chronology, the details shared and those left hidden. You can tell that this is a very, very personal book for the artist and I feel that perhaps Bui was too close to the story to have an appropriately objective view. The story was a part of Bui and where events were clear in her mind, the way they’re presented are unclear to the reader. On every page it was evident that the story meant something to this family, but it never meant anything to me, as the reader. An unfortunate result for a story with much potential.

Thanks to some challenges I found in recent years (and directions from the web on how to read them,) I've finally taken graphic novels/comics as something I could understand and perhaps even like. This graphic memoir is a nice example of why it's worthwhile to open my TBR list up to yet another genre. (I can be poorly read in many genres!)

Thi Bui is an American kid born in Viet Nam. When the memoir opens, she's having her first child. As many parents will tell you, this is a time that often brings our own childhoods into focus. Her story is different from the stereotypical strict immigration story, and through the memoir we see that the family history is indelibly marked by Viet Nam's history and her parents stories are marked by their parents' stories. It's easy to get tied in a knot when we find fault with our parents. It's clear from her pictures and words that there was some anger and confusion exorcised by writing this memoir. While she may have been able to lay blame at one time, her title states her final view. It's Thi Bui's unique story with lots of room for empathizing readers.

Her simple-yet-resonant art conveys the emotional impact of her words. The combination is effective and moving. I lingered over this book for weeks, searching the pictures and immersing myself in her story (until the library demanded I return their copy.) If you, like me, aren't comfortable with comics or graphic novels, this might be a place to start for those who like memoirs or history or both.

Graphic illustrations are a rather underused technique when it comes to mainstream literature, but they work particularly well with highly emotional issues like eating disorders. Lacy Davis has come clean with her problems with Anorexia and Bulimia (although she shies away from these terms), through a memoir that is honest and down-to-earth, and will hopefully provide motivation and encouragement for other sufferers.

The art work is done by her partner, Jim Kettner, who we meet in the memoir. I have to admit to being particularly impressed that someone else understands her well enough to do these illustrations, throughout the book I had assumed they were done by Lacy, herself.

Society puts huge pressures on youngsters these days, particularly the women, but men too. It is little surprise that many people crack under these pressures. In my opinion, any advice shared by those who have lived through their issues, is of tremendous value to those still battling their demons. This readily accessible format makes these shared experiences even more widely available.

Good luck to Lacy and Kett, I shall be interested to see what they come up with next.