Thomas's Reviews > In Limbo

Oh wow, what a powerful graphic memoir and one of the most enjoyable illustrated works I have read in a long time. In In Limbo, Deb JJ Lee details their experience growing up in a New Jersey suburb as a Korean American child of immigrants. They write about feeling like the Other and facing racism from their white peers as well as mistreatment and abuse from their mom. As their feelings of isolation and mental suffering escalate throughout high school, they start to turn to art as a way to heal. They also take a trip to South Korea that helps them discover a new perspective on their family, their heritage, and themselves.

In Limbo swept me up; I felt so much empathy and sympathy for Deb JJ Lee’s tumultuous childhood and adolescence. Their illustrations felt vivid and alive to me and captured the raw honesty of their experiences so well. I appreciated the themes of not belonging and not meeting both the white beauty standard or really the Korean beauty standard either. As someone who was also abused by my mother, I felt my heart leap up in my throat when I read the scenes about Deb’s abuse at the hands of their mother. This graphic memoir felt so real, though in a way that also showed Lee’s processing and perspective developing over time and not like a first draft diary entry.

I most loved reading about Lee’s growth and hard-won emotional maturity. After a lot of suffering, toward the end of the graphic memoir they learn several important lessons about not expecting your friends to fix your mental health (even if you can receive support from them, just not in a codependent way) as well as honoring their Korean heritage and seeing their mother as a full-person. The therapy session they go to where their therapist made the pillars analogy made me legit choke up because I felt the exact same way about my life, about how once you can escape your childhood environment (e.g., by going to college) you can eventually go back to your childhood and witness it with newfound perspective and maybe even peace. I also felt so moved by Deb’s healthy relationship with their father. We love seeing supportive and three-dimensional Asian fathers portrayed on the page!

The main reason I give this book four stars instead of five is because I felt like some of the themes related to race and racism could have been further developed. I think the end of In Limbo highlights Lee’s initial start to developing a deeper understanding of their Korean heritage. However, I felt that Lee highlighted several instances of internalized racism (e.g., not wanting to be friends with the other Korean kid in their class at one point) but didn’t really address that internalized racism fully. There are a lot of white people in this book and while that makes sense because In Limbo is a memoir and that’s how things played out in the author’s life, I found myself wanting more growth in the area of racial self-esteem. However, I recognize that journey may have occurred after the events shown in this memoir. Overall, a heartrending debut from a talented illustrator and writer.