Book Reviews: Fun Home, Bechdel; Bony-Legs, Cole; Maude, Child; The Tea Dragon Society, O'Neill

[juushika]

Title: Fun Home
Author: Alison Bechdel
Published: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 230
Total Page Count: 306,970
Text Number: 1033
Read Because: personal enjoyment, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: A graphic memoir that chronicles the effect of Bechdel's distant father on her childhood and coming out. This cycles back on itself, the timeline and memoir and parental portrait and socio-political background and fictional contextualization inscribing spirals; and it manages to be cumulative instead of repetitive. Those layers, of how a family informs a life, of how a biographer influences her subject's story, are self-aware and nuanced. It runs away with itself sometimes, but always feels authentic, and at its best achieves a resonant ambiguity. Bechdel's art is consistent; the panels legible and smartly juxtaposing timelines/elements. I'm glad I finally got around to this—it didn't disappoint.

"When I try to project what Dad's life might have been like if he hadn't died in 1980, I don't get very far. If he'd lived into those early years of AIDS, I tell myself, I might very well have lost him anyway, and in a more painful, protracted fashion. Indeed, in that scenario, I might have lost my mother too. Perhaps I'm being histrionic, trying to displace my actual grief with this imaginary trauma. [...] Or maybe I'm trying to render my senseless personal loss meaningful by linking it, however posthumously, to a more coherent narrative. A narrative of injustice, of sexual shame and fear, of life considered expendable. It's tempting to say that, in fact, this is my father's story. There a certain emotional expedience in claiming him a tragic victim of homophobia. But that's a problematic line of thought. For one thing, it makes it harder for me to blame him."

Title: Bony-Legs
Author: Joanna Cole
Illustrator: Dirk Zimmer
Published: Scholastic, 1983
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 50
Total Page Count: 307,330
Text Number: 1036
Read Because: mentioned on this list of creepy picture books, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: The art is what makes this—the vivid autumnal colors against intricate black lineart is deceptively dense and vibrant. It balances an adequate but not especially surprising retelling, enlivening not-quite-stilted language & the repetition endemic to fairytales with full-page, dynamic panels that have fantastic imagery. What a joy!


Title: Maude: The Not-So-Noticeable Shrimpton
Author: Lauren Child
Illustrator: Trisha Krauss
Published: Candlewick Press, 2013
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 307,360
Text Number: 1037
Read Because: mentioned on this list of creepy picture books, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Unexpectedly delightful, thanks mostly to the pacing and a flawless final panel. It's unbalanced until that point, too any Shimptons, not enough Maude, although the vibrant and stylized art is an engaging contrast to the the camouflaged protagonist. The only thing I'm really not sold on is the quirky typesetting; it could work to make the text more engaging to a young audience, but it's too illegible for that; it feels instead like a gimmick.


Title: The Tea Dragon Society
Author: Katie O'Neill
Published: Oni Press, 2017
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 70
Total Page Count: 307,430
Text Number: 1038
Read Because: reviewed by Kalanadi, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library but also available for free online (fwiw the two versions aren't identical)
Review: An apprentice blacksmith rescues a miniature dragon, and so discovers the practice of raising them for the magical tea leaves that grow on their horns. Reminiscent of McKinley's fantasy novels, this is idealized, kind, and gorgeously evocative; and, like McKinley, it leans towards twee but avoids it. Scenes often end with a pensive zoom out to a beautiful landscape shot—a dream come true in O'Neill's vibrant, lineless style; the dragons are cute, and the character designs diverse and charming. The worldbuilding and themes are balanced such that the emotional climaxes are incredibly successful (read: I teared up in a public library over themes of memory and identity that hit too close to home). My only complaint is the dragons, which are so transparent in narrative function that they never quite feel real; I wish the appendix had been omitted, as it exacerbates this issue. But this book is a gift, and I look forward to reading more of O'Neill's work.

Comments

[minutia_r]

Completely off topic, but since I don't know if/when you're going to check your PMs on here, I figured I'd mention that we're ultra friends on pokemon go now, and my gmail is minutiar@gmail.com if you want to message me if you're ever in the mood for a battle.

[juushika]

TY for reminder message! (I did see the first, I'm just even worse at follow-through right now because of bad memory/limited PC time.) I send you a friend request on Discord, which I hope still works (I'm a Juushika there too, should be pretty recognizable).

Still terrified of battling! Almost undoubtedly will be Very Bad. But there's no reason not to try!