Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

Banned Book Week special review! Fun Home is mainly about a girl and her father. She figures out that she is a lesbian, and later discovers that her father was probably gay too, but she never realized it growing up. There are a whole lot of literary references to Proust, James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, all mixed in with the father issues and her maturation and discoveries. I found it interesting, but after a while, the book, which is a graphic novel and shows some explicit lesbian scenes (I'll never be able to read James and the Giant Peach without thinking of this book) that prompted its being challenged, seemed to be beating me over the head with the father and the lesbianism. I get it! You're a lesbian! Your father was a closeted gay man! You had issues. Let's get on with it already. Pretty clear why it was challenged, but people are pretty insecure if they are worried about cartoon nudity.

Next up, I am reading two other banned books at once: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, which I am reading at work, and The Guy Book: An Owner's Manual by Mavis Jukes, which I am reading at home, since it has pictures of the plumbing (which almost got me in trouble with this last book).