Fun Home

This book was definitely not what I had expected it would be like; I thought perhaps it would be a comic and then turn into a regular book after a few chapters of comics, but it did no such thing. Bechdel's style of writing and going about her topic is very interesting and original, which is probably why I kept wanting to read more of the comic. I've never read anything at all like this before, so this is a refreshing break from a plain old book.
The beginning of the book reveals that the author is the actual main character in this book and is retelling a story of her youth by using some comic relief to tragedies that have happened to her. In the first chapter, she describes the relationship between her and her father. Through the pictures you can tell that her father is similar to a dictator in her home, and it is fair to say that she is unhappy with her home life. It is her father's way or the highway and her whole family must take a step back out of his way or lend a hand to help him get to his goal. Her and her siblings often have to do "chores" or work that he needs done around their mansion. These quotes on page 15 really stuck out to me that sum up how Alison feels about her father and his treatment of her and her family, "I was spartan to my father's Athenian. Modern to his victorian. Butch to his nelly. Utilitarian to his aesthete."Her father had a skill of making even garbage turn into something beautiful, and she even goes to say that her father could make their dysfunctional family seem "normal." The theme in this chapter seems to be that her family was dysfunctional and relatively strange, but tried hiding all of their secrets to just inside the house. Their family wasn't "real" and not entirely whole; Alison felt that they were missing something that she thought every other family had. But to me, it seems that every kid wants what other kids' have and in Alison's case it was the affection that her cold father and mother lacked. But when her father died or committed suicide, whatever one wants to believe, one would think that things would change for her. Things in the story still go into detail about her her life, although we begin to see a few more stories about her father's family that maybe foreshadows his behavior towards his own family. I know that this book is supposed to be at tragicomedy, but this story is really a depressing story of family. However, reading this book reminds one that no matter how strange you think your family is, there are other families just as strange or worse off than yours.