Date Published: March 7, 2017 Format: Kindle Source: Library Date Read: November 3, 2019 Review A thorough examination of a Vietnam family's immigration to the US. There was history, family dynamics, and exploration of the Vietnam conflict from the perspective of the Vietnamese people who were on ...
A Different Pond captures that diaspora feeling, the one of not quite belonging and yearning for a place you’ve maybe never even been to but always feel around you. Thi Bui’s soft illustrations, with their specific, familiar details sprinkled throughout, add to the melancholy of the quiet father-son...
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...
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 ...
Viet Thanh Nguyen serves as editor for a short but impactful collection of essays about refugees and the refugee experience. I read a lot about immigration. I'm not entirely unaware that many of these stories are actually about refugees, but it's interesting that people often morph themselves into "...
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 genr...
It’s early in the morning on a Saturday, yet his father has been up a while getting ready for the day. The streets are empty as the father and his young son set out for the fishing trip, stopping off to get bait, at a business that his father frequently visited. The boy is squeamish about the proced...
The novel begins with a detail account of Thi Bui giving birth to her son. Her mother arrives to help her through this process yet, she stands outside the door, unable to do anything to help her. This mother who had high expectations when she arrived and had given birth to children herself, stands o...
First things first: I received this book through NetGalley. HOLY MOTHER OF EVERYTHING. This graphic novel/comic, whatever you wanna call it, is everything. Seriously. Summary: This beautifully illustrated and emotional story is an evocative memoir about the search for a better future and a longi...
Twenty-first century Joy Luck Club: there is a lot here about what refugees lose, and never get back. There is the burden on the second generation to do well, and the fear of not doing well enough. And there is the particular sorrow of trying to fill the gaping hole left by a dead child, and the spe...
Log in with Facebook 
