Little Robin's Nest

Fun Home is an autobiography in which Alison Bechdel narrates the story of her childhood and teens, focusing on discovering her sexuality and her relationship with her gay father. She is from a little Pennsylvanian town, and she grows up a tomboy. She leaves her town to go to college, and there she realizes she's gay. Upon coming out to her parents, her mother reveals her father's gay too.

The book begins very promising and enjoyable, with the interesting subject and Bechdel's analysis of herself and her father and her mother. She likens their lives to various book plots, and that is attractive up to some point. But it seems that the latter half of the book is built on James Joyce's Ulysses, comparing every single thing about her relationship with her father with the book's characters' relationship; most of the details eluded me because I haven't read Ulysses. I just skipped some parts towards the end. It's loaded heavily with references to Odysseia and Ulysses and Henry James books and Fitzgerald books from the beginning, but in the end it becomes smothering.

Other than that, the plot doesn't seem to be carefully crafted, because I found it to be repeating the same things over and over again. The book could've been shorter and more concise, rather than talking about the same points every two chapters. Also, the drawings weren't original and engaging enough to make up for the tiring narrative.

I had high hopes for this one, I'm disappointed. Is it such a big deal because it deals with homosexuality and being open with yourself and such? I wish somebody had said so, instead of praising the story or the style. I'm all for LGBT and gay rights, but I would have spent my money on some other book.