Wednesday, February 29, 2012

American Born Chinese


American Born Chinese is a great graphic novel about embracing who you are and not trying to change to be like everyone else. It’s a super relatable topic. I think most everyone has felt as some point that they would like to be someone else, especially during adolescence. I can’t imagine the difficulties that come along with being a different ethnicity in a white dominated society, but I can understand the wish to be someone else.
The way the story is presented, with the three separate stories that come together in the end, was brilliantly done. At first I was a little sad that it strayed from the main character Jin so much, but at the end it was all worth it. Its cool how the concept of the book is told in three different ways. The Chin Kee story is very comical, the Jin story is pretty normal and set in our day and age, and the monkey story is done in an old Chinese fable sort of way. I particularly liked how the Chin Kee story had a laugh track like some bad sit-com. I also liked the bit about being a transformer. It was a very clear metaphor for what the main character goes through in the story.
The art style that is used is very nice. I love clean graphic art. I do wish I could have gotten more out of the main story of Jin. I wanted to know more about him and have a few side events go on before the comic ended. I really did enjoy this though. The message was clear and useful and the comic itself was an easy read.


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