Yu Pei-Yun

When I saw this book was going to be released soon, I was intrigued by the fact that it was a true story, in graphic novel form, about someone from Taiwan. To my knowledge, I’ve never read any books set in Taiwan, so I was naturally curious. And, as a history lover, I was especially intrigued—my knowledge of Taiwan’s history is scanty, at best!

Whew. What a story! Honestly, it’s hard to imagine people having to go through what was described here—especially when I consider that the main character was/is about the age of my grandparents. To think that other people were suffering to this extent, when my grandparents were growing up in relative comfort, is incredible to me.

Culturally speaking, this book is a rich representation of Taiwanese culture in the 1930s and 1940s. Several facets I found especially interesting were the fact that the main character came from a family of eight—but only the oldest girl and the four or five boys in the family lived at home; the other sisters lived with other friends or family members. I also enjoyed the brief glimpses of family dynamics, and the few mentions of how the family worshipped were also interesting. Then there was the description of what World War II looked like from the Japanese perspective—a “holy war”. And then there was the whole thing about the unjust imprisonment…like I said, it’s hard to imagine, but I finished the book marveling at how resilient people can be, and how important it is to support others in their struggles.

This book was well-done, engaging, and informative. I did struggle to keep the names separate in my mind (I ended up doing quite a bit of flipping back-and-forth to remind myself of who was who!), but that was really a minor issue. Of all the graphic novels I’ve read so far, I think this one had my favorite illustration style—it was clear, but not too distorted comicy, like I’ve seen some places. Overall, this was a fascinating read, and I hope I’ll get the chance to read book two in the series someday!

I was given a complimentary copy of this book, and this is my honest opinion of it.… (més)