Graphic Novel Review - 'Age 16' by Rosena Fung

Full of honesty, pain, spirit and hope, 'Age 16' is a beautiful graphic novel about coming of age, and generational trauma.

Sort-of autobiographical, it is about three generations of women, and their stories - there's our main girl Rosalind in Toronto, Canada, in 2000; her mother Lydia from Hong Kong in 1972; and her mother Mei Laan from Guangdong in 1954. They all reach a critical change in their lives at the tender, vulnerable age of sixteen. It is also all about cultural and societal misogyny throughout the ages, and how internalised misogyny, the obsession with weight, dieting and impossible beauty standards, and eating disorders, are linked to it.

It is all about women, and mothers and daughters, and female friendships. There is nary an important male figure in sight; most are MIA, or misogynistic POS's not worth the time and space in this graphic novel.

It is a tragic universal truth that a girl's first hater is too often her own mother. As Rosena Fung says at the end in her Author's Note:


'This book is about all the ways we are taught to deny our bodies tenderness, and mothers can be especially critical of their daughters' bodies. They hold the ways the world has been cruel to them as girls and women and pass it on. I recognise now that my mom wanted to protect me from our society's hatred of fatness but in doing so ended up reinforcing it. It's taken a lifetime for me to figure out that I can accept her love but reject this inheritance.'


Overprotection or not, this kind of upbringing is cruel and inexcusable.

Between 'Age 16', and 'The Joy Luck Club' and 'Turning Red' (also set in Toronto in the early 2000s!) and many others, mother-to-daughter generational trauma stories do predominately resonate with Chinese people and their culture. Although, again, this topic is universal, thanks to the rampant misogyny in every fundamental culture in the entire world.

In 'Age 16', I like the use of colouring - a purple palette for Rosalind's time, and orange for Lydia's time, and green for Mei Laan's time. In the end, beautiful-as-she-is Rosalind will come to wear all these colours. The art is round, bouncy, manga-esque, simple, and expressive.

The book doesn't ever compromise and betray its own morals - f*&$! beauty standards and dieting, eat what you want! Be big! Take up as much space as you want! And I love the scene where Rosalind starts to embrace her geeky side when she stumbles upon a con by accident. So much copyright-friendly pop culture stuff and fun! She will love this side of herself, too. F!$£*! what anyone else thinks. She's a photographer, and Lydia is a dancer, or she wishes she were, if only Mei Laan would ever let her be herself, and love herself in her own skin.

Cat treat/meow mix inclusion: Rosalind has a fat cat named Millie. So cute!

'Age 16' is light and somewhat hand-wavey and dismissive of the LBGTQ+ community, but that could be reflective of its timelines, especially in 2000 (a new age of deeply shallow and sexist marketing strategies, like in magazines and advertising everywhere, and things would only get far worse from there...)

Anyway, 'Age 16' - highly recommended. It is a raw mother-and-daughter, generational trauma story that I can stomach, without hating the older generation. Well, not too much. I really like 'Living with Viola' by Rosena Fung, and I like this too. Also recommended if you like graphic novels such as 'Persepolis', 'Huda F Are You?', and 'Anya's Ghost'.

Remember: 'A girl like you... Maybe you're already... Who you're supposed to be.'

Extra quote from the Author's Note:


'Being a girl can feel like you're hauling this psychic pain with you every day, the pain of the world telling you you're too much and not enough. I wrote Age 16 to give voice to that pain but also to show all the ways we can unlearn it. To help us realize we're already who we're supposed to be.'


Final Score: 4/5