cw: body image issues, disordered eating

Following three generations of women, Age 16 focuses on each woman when they are sixteen. Each of their time periods explore how criticizing children and be passed from generation to generation as well as the struggle of trying to overcome that and learn to love yourself.

I want to say first off, that if the triggers are something you struggle with, go into this carefully as some of the scenes could potentially be upsetting.

The art for this was beautiful. It had this playful style that really made it fun and engaging. What really helped me though was the monochrome palette that changed with each narrative. It really helped to differentiate them and really make them stand out from one another which for someone who can easily get lost and confused, I was super grateful for this.

Having all the different story lines really allows the reader to see how each character was crafted to be who they are and why the intergenerational trauma is being passed down. While maybe the reader would agree with the actions, it was easy to see the reason for the way they were acting like they were and how they were struggling with their own issues that were never resolved.

I loved how the reader got to see self-love and acceptance happening throughout the story. Each of the three women are realizing something and trying to work through it and be better. That was wonderful and made the ending feel like it came too fast. While the ending is probably the most realistic, I couldn’t help but feel like there were a few too many lose strings out there that could have been wrapped up. It felt too open ended.

Overall, I really did enjoy this. It’s a great look at intergenerational trauma. The struggle Rosalind has with her body image and how she is dealing with that is very real. Then the hope at the end is uplifting and positive that should really leave readers with the message of it’s okay to be who you are, no matter your size.

coming of age graphic memoir that cover the lives of 3 generations of women during their teenage years. how their teenage life experience affected the lives of their children--their daughters. at the end of the day they only wanted the best for their children, even though their method isn't entirely correct and their children didn't like their treatment.

I absolutely loved this graphic novel about three generations and their experiences at age 16. The reader follows Rosalind aka Rox aka Linney in 2000 in Canada, her mother, Lydia, in the early 1970s in Hong Kong, and her Por Por (grandmother), Mei Laan, in the early 1950s in China. This book focuses a lot on fatphobia and how when it's internalized, it continues to be passed from one generation to the next. Being a millennial, I remember the overwhelming fatphobia in the early 2000s. The obsession with scales, the diet fads, calorie counting, over exercising, and starving yourself to be thin. I've personally spent my whole life sucking my stomach in, even when I was thin (thinking I was fat) and spent many a school lunches refusing to eat although my tummy growled with hunger so I very much understood many of Roz's troubles. I really appreciate the way Age 16 portrays the background and history of what Rosalind thinks is a naggy, critical mother and mean grandmother. Seeing her mother and her grandmother's past experiences and hardships help the reader see where this toxic behavior comes from while the ending shows that you have the power to end the cycle.

"The world can be made to fit you. You're already who you need to be."

Age 16 by Rosena Fung is a graphic novel that follows three generations of women, spanning from 1950s China to Toronto in the early 2000s. The narration is nonlinear in time, focusing in turn on the grandmother, mother and daughter, when each one is 16.

It is a story that explores the continuous cycle of criticising one's kids, and the journey to accepting one's self despite the harsh words of one's parents.

The art style gave me Daria and the Scott Pilgrim comic book vibes. A few pages have beautifully rendered images of the Chinese countryside, and these panels were my favorite part of the graphic novel.

As for the story, I felt just ok about it. The protagonist - the daughter - struggles with body image and is stressed out about feeling like she isn't accepted as her true self by her group of friends. It's a tale that should be super-relatable - I lived through the same thing in my teens, as did pretty much everybody else. But the story felt underwhelming and didn't grab me as much as I thought it was going to during the first few pages of the graphic novel. There is a happy ending, but it just didn't feel satisfying, likely because the emotional stakes weren't very robust.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing me a free advance reader copy through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and Annick Press for a e-book ARC!

Graphic novels that focus on multi-generational relationships are probably one of my favorite storylines the medium can explore. Age 16 definitely caught my interest because of this and its structure reminds me of Joy Luck Club with it switching between each generation of women. I think Roz and Lydia were the strongest characters in terms of characterization and backstory. I related to Roz as a fellow nerd and Lydia held my attention with her learning to love herself and find a space where she could be happy. Por Por (Mei Laan) was a character I wish we got to see more backstory than we did because by the end I couldn't sympathize with her on the same level I did with Roz and Lydia. Por Por probably has the most interesting story to tell because its her actions that create Roz essentially, so to see very little of her backstory is a missed opportunity to me.

However, there are still around eight months until the official release (which I will be picking up); I hope we get to see more or Por Por's backstory in the official release!

You know how you sometimes pick up a book just to take a quick look and you’ll finish it later, but end up reading the whole thing in one gulp. Yeah, that is what I did with Rosena Fung’s graphic novel “Age 16”.

It tells the story of three women of the same family, grandmother, mother, daughter, all at age 16, and what their life was like, and what their dreams were. The Por Por (grandmother) at age 16, was in China and betrothed to a man in Hong Kong, and she thinks that that would be better than anything. She ends up being a single mother. Her daughter, Lyndia, has problems being accepted by her mother, and escapes to Toronto. And her daughter, Roz, has problems as well, being unhappy with her weight.

When her Por Por shows up, the family fights and yells and doesn’t get along because none of those problems have been fixed. We follow each of the women through their lives and how they got there, including Roz, who is just trying to figure things out.

I love this story, because no one is innocent. Everyone is messed up for some reason, be it the war, be it weight, be it feeling that your mother doesn’t love you. Told in three different timelines, and three different places, it all works together.

Thanks to Edelweiss and Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review. This book is going to be published by Annick Press, the 2nd of July 2024.