Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Alison's family was artistically innovative and emotionally repressed. Her memoir is not only the story of her life but also a study of the man who was her father. His passion for literature shaped her own, and when she came out to her parents her father was outed by her mother. An amazing look at how a parent's involvement in a child's life can affect you in ways that bring you closer and push you farther away.

This was absolutely genius. Alison Blechdel is the author of Dykes to Watch Out For and an Eisner Award winner. But I think more importantly, she is an absolutely gifted storyteller and artist. Her memoir is told in an almost frenetic pace, jumping from subject to subject, but it all mingles into a beautiful storyline that gives you an full scope of what it was to grow up in her family and shaped her into the person she is today. Her artwork is kind of awesome, very distinctive and amazingly detailed in parts (by kind of I actually mean astoundingly). It all adds to the ambiance of her memoir and gives you greater insight as to who everyone is in the book and the personalities that they all have.

I've discovered that, after having read quite a few graphic novels, I really like graphic memoirs. I think they are probably the best representation of what a memoir and a graphic novel can be, and this is one of the best that I've read.