This post is part of a series in which I describe the twenty-four books I read in 2018 for Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge.
Task: Read a comic written or drawn by a person of color.
When I became a parent, in between the tectonic shifts in my hormonal makeup, sleep deprivation, and adjustment to having such a strange and tiny new housemate, I thought about my own parents a lot. Like me, both of my parents had a lot of life before any of their three children showed up. But they were also devoted, loving, wonderful parents – to the point that it’s hard to think of them as anyone other than Mom and Dad. Parental identity is a hell of a thing, and finding yourself in that role is an incredible empathy builder for the people in your life who took it on for you.
Thi Bui’s graphic memoir The Best We Could Do begins with the birth of the creator’s son in 2005 while her mother waits outside her room. The first few pages cover that hallucinatory time in the hospital after the birth. After Thi’s mom leaves, Thi thinks, “A terrifying thought creeps into my head. Family is now something I have created – and not just something I was born into.”