I am here, in part, because of Murray from Murray Out Of Water! However, I am also here because I read half of this in the library in 2020 and would like to finish it. (It left a lasting impact on my art style.)

This was phenomenal!! (And I might up my rating to 5 stars! I almost teared up reading a couple parts and I never do that with comics.) I haven’t seen a graphic novel mix textual and visual storytelling so well in a long time. The art was stunning, and I loved the change in fairytale aesthetics depending on the cultural upbringings of the characters!! (I spotted a small amount of that on my own, but most of that I only found out because of the author’s notes.) Tying different retellings into immigrant stories and self-identity is such a creative premise. 

Ending was a little more abrupt than I expected it to be, though? And I also wanted to see more on Tiên, the story was mostly in his mother’s perspective and I wasn’t expecting that from the summary. However, overlapping his story with Tâm Cám’s made it extra emotional, and goodness… I just love all the parallels drawn throughout.

This was so charming, though. I’ll definitely recommend this to a lot of people.