by Sharlene

The Best We Could Do – Thi Bui

This beautiful and moving graphic memoir opens with the birth of Thi Bui’s child, in the first chapter, titled ‘Labor’.

And this book, this work of labour that Bui started in 2005 and was released in 2017, is perhaps even more relevant today, in this climate of walls and bans and constant discussion about immigration, both legal and illegal.

This is a refugee story. This is the story of how Bui’s family escaped from Vietnam to the US. This is also a story of family – how her parents met, got together, and started their family. And how now, as Bui begins a family of her own, she realizes: “The responsibility is immense. A wave of empathy for my mother washes over me.”

 

It is moving, it is filled with memories, it is a tribute to her parents, to her family, to their lives in Vietnam and their new home in America.

 

 

 I’m using this book for “Asian refugee MC” for #AsianLitBingo

6 Comments

    1. Hopefully it will work. Depends really on whether graphic novel just means the medium? I’m intending to use a graphic memoir for the graphic novel spot. So hopefully it counts!

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