In Limbo
Ratings7
Average rating4.2
A debut YA graphic memoir about a Korean-American girl's coming-of-age story—and a coming home story—set between a New Jersey suburb and Seoul, South Korea. Ever since Deborah (Jung-Jin) Lee emigrated from South Korea to the United States, she's felt her otherness. For a while, her English wasn’t perfect. Her teachers can’t pronounce her Korean name. Her face and her eyes—especially her eyes—feel wrong. In high school, everything gets harder. Friendships change and end, she falls behind in classes, and fights with her mom escalate. Caught in limbo, with nowhere safe to go, Deb finds her mental health plummeting, resulting in a suicide attempt. But Deb is resilient and slowly heals with the help of art and self-care, guiding her to a deeper understanding of her heritage and herself. This stunning debut graphic memoir features page after page of gorgeous, evocative art, perfect for Tillie Walden fans. It's a cross section of the Korean-American diaspora and mental health, a moving and powerful read in the vein of Hey, Kiddo and The Best We Could Do.
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Beautiful and hard to read about depression and loneliness and parental expectations. I think this is a relateable story for many, many teens.
This is hands down the most beautiful graphic novel I've ever read!
And it takes you all the places!
I have GOT to stop reading graphic memoirs. Somehow the art always ends up taking a distant second place to the story that needs to be told. Which, hey, tell your story, but maybe memoir is just too wordy a concept to represent visually? This cover is stunning, but the interior is all gray scale, and mostly talking heads, photorealism over more creative representation. 1/?
I'm glad for the author that they're comfortable with publishing this catharsis, but I struggled to connect with the medium. I also really had a hard time with the stasis of the situation: ⚠️ teen's mental health decline, abusive mom, multiple suicide attempts and the only action shown is talk therapy? Hard to read about that ‘status quo' after the fact, to see forgiveness counselled when I'm not sure I could. Very happy the author's note indicates they're managing their mental health and “life's been good”.
⚠️ Also deals with racism, body image, discussions of elective surgery
