The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir

Quality comic book. She goes over the story of her parents growing up in poor war conditions in Vietnam. How they did get together? How did they get to USA? Overall the drawings are crude and could use some color. She likes to show Vietnam or US streets yet all of that in red makes it dull and at times pointless. We really need to see more details to understand the history. As the communist North Vietnam won the war when USA pulled out Vietnam was a totalitarian state that killed anyone who went against them. And there were snitches everywhere even in families. Ready to tell on friends and neighbors. Meaning you could get sent into labor camps or prison for basically nothing. And no one could make much money. People barely survived.

The story is too long. There are a lot of small events happening. Yet at the same time we miss stories. How did she meet her husband? Who is he? What is her work? What did her parent do for work? Where did her grandparents end up? How did Vietnam change? Does she have friends? What do her sisters do for work? It's written as a fevor dream where we get a few shots of real events. Yet she is a terrible storyteller and doesn't understand what to show or when. Sure it's engaging enough, yet never fully informative.

What is interesting is Vietnam. Yet we start and end with the author giving birth. There is a huge focus on births as her mom is presented this way too. Important events of course ... yet personal. Vietnam is crucial and should have been the main story. That's the stuff we don't know about. Yet she want to mainly inform us about births and having a mom ... stuff we can read about in any other book.

This was a great memoir. It taught me a lot about the Vietnam War from a variety of perspectives. Some of it was a little hard to follow but that could just be because I don't know very much about the war to begin with. I did enjoy reading Thi's account of her parent's stories and how they impacted her deeply, especially as she goes in to labor with her own child. The illustration is beautiful and I am glad that she decided to tell her story in this format. I would definitely recommend for many reasons: the art, the history, the struggles and triumphs and of course the memoir itself.

I do not usually read graphic novels and I typically get bored, but I really did enjoy this one. The color scheming choice is one that I very much applaud; the red added so much to the story. The little artistic choices made to help further the narrative and emotion were also very well done.

The story itself was at once both a heartbreaking and hopeful one. It manages to be both a historically informative novel and an interesting personal narrative in one story while still keeping readers engaged. I only take a star away because I feel as if I have learned more about Vietnam and Bui's family than about Bui herself, which I understand is important in Bui's own journey but for me fell a little flat when she reached the conclusion in the last chapter about accepting the fact that she won't have the same connections and histories as her family but can start anew for her son.

A quick read but one that keeps you invested and will probably teach you more about the Vietnam war than you have ever learned in any U.S. school.

I’m not generally a fan of memoirs, but this one was gripping. It's a story well told, accompanied by gorgeous, compelling artwork. I was stunned to learn that the author learned comic arts in order to create this book—it's masterfully done; seems to be the product of a sure hand and a clear vision. One of the best graphic novels I’ve read.

While I enjoyed this woman's story, the jumps between time periods threw me off, a lot. As a grandchild of an immigrant, I feel the more stories like this that we read, the better off we will be. I loved how the author used her gifts of art to share her story. The colors match the tone of the story well.