Fun Home

by Alison Bechdel

[brokentune]

The latest foray into the realms of the graphic novel led me to Bechdel's autobiographical works about her parents.

Fun Home, the earlier of the two books, describes her growing up and relationship with her father. Without going into much of the plot and issues, Fun Home offers an exploration into Bechdel's coming to terms with outgrowing the illusions of her childhood whilst exploring works of literature. In a way, one of the aspects that have kept me hooked to the story is Bechdel's connection of her own story and that of the people around her to the plots and characters of literary works and authors.

Are You My Mother? tries to follow up Fun Home with an investigation of Bechdel's relationship with her mother. Although following a similar structure as Fun Home, Are You My Mother? focuses on the analysis of Bechdel's relationship issues from a psychological perspective. Filled with anxiety and compulsion, her introspection at times is little more than a frustrating read, probably because I can't really relate to a lot of the neurosis she seems to have suffered through. The literary aspect of Fun Home is still present in this sequel but it is not at strong as in Fun Home.

So, 3* for Are You My Mother and 4* for Fun Home.

The drawings and artwork in in both are excellent.