The Best We Could Do
Ratings87
Average rating4.4
A really compelling memoir about Thi's upbringing and background from her parents who came over from Vietnam. I learned a lot about a time period that I've heard so much about but I never really learned about. It was interesting to hear her parents different backgrounds and struggles. Amazing illustrations are in this book and Thi took a lot of time and care putting this whole book together. ~Ashley
If you have tokophobia I would skip the first chapter and be prepared for non-harsh scenes in this book.
I teared up several times. A very powerful difficult story. One that as an American I've never heard before, but should be more widely read and understood.
Thi has set out to uncover and document her family's history.
This is a story of resilience, the human desire to live, survive, be understood, be seen... to be.
This was incredibly hard to read on so many levels. War is always hard to read about and more so when it is a first person recounting of it but this is equally as hard because of the family dynamics depicted in the pages. It was so sad. There is so much to dissect and take in but it feels wrong to do so because this is a real person and real experiences most likely going through it still.
I don't even know what to say... This was a lot.
Thi Bui tells the story of her family's journey from Viet Nam to the United States, but also the journeys each of her parents and she herself take from childhood to parenthood.
The stories here are personal and real. This is very character driven. It's the people in the story that I like most.
I have never faced living in a war torn country, moving to a new home with a whole new culture and language. Further, I knew next to nothing about Viet Nam. Reading these stories was enlightening. The fact that these are also stories about individuals who were trying to find their ways in life with flawed parents with issues they didn't understand and trying to find their way in life is something I understand and identify with. The blend of these two journeys is a brilliant storytelling technique that makes for more than just learning about someone. It is an intimate look into another person's life that makes them less a random stranger and more of a real person I can identify with and respect.
Wonderful memoir of the author's childhood and her parents' lives prior to their emigration from Vietnam to the United States. Bui spent many years figuring out the best way to ask about her parents' youth and how to tell this story, as it came with so much baggage related to her parents' often-harrowing experiences as Vietnam fought for its independence from the French, then fought North against South, and through what Americans know as the Vietnam War and the continuation of war after the U.S. troops withdrew ... up until the family finally made its way to Cambodia as refugees. The book is beautifully illustrated and helped me to understand much more about Vietnamese history than I knew.
TW: stillbirth, infant death, racial slurs, violence/murder related to war
This is the first time I've read a graphic memoir. It's an interesting format - the watercolour images give everything a kind of dreamy memory-like quality which is especially interesting in the parts that the author experienced as a small child. It's a story about Vietnam, but also about parents and children and what we pass down, both on purpose and without meaning to. It can be a heavy read, but I enjoyed it.
I am not ashamed to admit that I cried really hard near the end of this book.
I remember sitting down with a friend years ago, listening while he told me the story of his family escaping Vietnam. How, even as adult, it felt unreal to hear someone I knew so well and seemed so like me could have had a childhood that was so mired in fear and death. It was the first time, despite having grown up with so many Vietnamese friends, that I had really thought about what life was like in Vietnam in the 70s.
This book is full of history. It's so full of everything. The art was so beautiful and expressive. I love the cover. I think what first drew me to the book was the cover. Vietnam on one side, the US on the other. Though very much a book about the history of Vietnam and the fall of Saigon and her family's experience, it is also a book about what it means to be a mother. And I do think that it most clearly comes to you when you become a parent yourself. Everything your parents did for you, all the things they gave up so you could thrive. I found it especially poignant when Hang tells Thi's husband she was happiest when she was at the school before college, before her husband, before children. Thi is somewhat upset that her mother didn't think of herself as happiest with her children, but I understood that. Before you become a mother your happiness is tied to no one else. You are living for yourself, following your dreams. Once you have children you find joy in them, you are happy when you see them, smell them, you love them. But your happiness is different. It is not your own anymore.
A wonderful and at times hard to read graphic novel. The narration style reminds me of Maus. The visuals are quite striking, Thi Bui using just a couple of colours in a great way.
I didn't know much about the Vietnam war but thanks to this book I learned how horrible this period was. Definitely worth a read!
A really personal way to learn about Bui's family throughout the Vietnam War and what it took for them to immigrate to the US and the trauma involved in her family history that she's now reckoning with as she has her own child. Definitely a good YA read to pair with learning about the 60s/70s and the Vietnam War. The art and color palette is effective as is her use of movement through panels. Teen readers might need to get talked/walked through the opening Chapter, “Labor” but the rest will appeal, hold interest, and give personal insight and context to history.
I read this because I've heard wonderful things about it and I thought it might be a good choice for a summer reading option for a HS world history class. I don't think it's a great choice for that class - I'm not sure that there's a lot of teen appeal? But, it's incredible. The limited color palate really works well for the stories and it manages to be sad but hopeful at the same time. I loved it.
I have never loved or been affected by a graphic novel as I have by this one. Such an honest story about family, love between generations, war, refugees and the heartache they endure and overcome.
I don't usually read graphic novels...both the story and art are beautiful
When I first saw the cover and description for Bui Thi's graphic memoir, The Best We Could Do, I immediately added it to my list of future reads. It looked like the kind of graphic novel that would move me and leave me wanting more. And while there's a good story in here somewhere, this book didn't resonate with me like I'd hoped.
The story at the center of The Best We Could Do, the story of a family emigrating from Viet Nam, is a good story. It includes a lot of dramatic turns and is often heartfelt. The characters were interesting, especially those closest to the author-narrator. The art was only okay, but this isn't ever a huge factor in my opinion of a graphic novel.
I think the problem I had connecting with the story had to do with presentation: the pacing, the chronology, the details shared and those left hidden. You can tell that this is a very, very personal book for the artist and I feel that perhaps Bui was too close to the story to have an appropriately objective view. The story was a part of Bui and where events were clear in her mind, the way they're presented are unclear to the reader. On every page it was evident that the story meant something to this family, but it never meant anything to me, as the reader. An unfortunate result for a story with much potential.
Very good memoir of a Vietnamese family - couldn't put it down. Read in one sitting!
I'm pretty sick to death of autobiographical/memoir graphic novels, but this was beautiful and heartbreaking. The adventure and tragedy of being a refugee. Really striking.
THE BEST WE COULD DO is a poignant graphic novel & memoir by Thi Bui, tracing her family's escape from war-torn Vietnam, their new life as American immigrants, & the effect of both of these experiences on her identity as a first-time mother.
The writing is beautiful & hits you right in the gut:
”Being my father's child, I, too, was a product of war. And being my mother's child, I could never measure up to her.”
gorgeous
”But maybe being their child simply means that I will always feel the weight of their past.”
Beautiful graphic novel. All the horror and tumult of escaping war in South Vietnam to a challenging life of immigration. With a deeper focus on the bond and the boundaries that such experiences can bring to parents and children.
Vietnam was a curse word during my childhood and teen years. I have friends and relatives and neighbors who died there, without ever really knowing much about it.
This book is a story of Vietnam and the story of a family from Vietnam and the story of a girl from Vietnam. It's full of beauty and happy moments and awful times and death and cruelty. And it's told in graphic novel format, with powerful illustrations to accompany the words.
I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of this at BEA 2016. It's an unfinished copy, but already the story felt complete and the illustrations amazing. I know nothing about Vietnam- nothing. I found this story fascinating. Really, it's three stories: life before, during, and after Thi's family's immigration to the US. It's a little long and, I feel, would have universal appeal.