REVIEW: Rosena Fung’s ‘Age 16’ is a Layered, Necessary Read about Girlhood
Words and Art: Rosena Fung
Cover Art: Rosena Fung Cover Design by: Rosena Fung and Sam Tse
Interior Designed by: Rosena Fung and Sam Tse
Additional Coloring: Rachel Nam
Editor: Serah-Marie McMahon, Copy Editor: Mary Ann Blair
Proof reader: Dana Hopkins, Cantonese Language Reviewer: Ambrose Li
Award-winning creator of Living With Viola Rosena Fung pulls from her own family history in her YA debut to give us an fictional yet emotional and poignant story about how every generation is affected by those that came before, and affect those that come after.
Content warning: Please note that toxic parenting, negative body image talk, body shaming and disordered eating are covered throughout this story. Implied, attempted and actual violence against women is also included.
Rosalind better known as Roz is a sixteen years old Chinese-Canadian teenage girl living in Toronto in the year 2000. With an older brother away studying, an absent father, she mostly lives with her overly critical mother who very often does not have much to say that doesn’t wash away at the little self-esteem Roz has.This teen is a lover of photography, so much that her friends continue to compliment her and Roz wonders what a world with her and her camera might look like after high school.
Roz is not sure about much in her life but has an inkling that losing weight and being smaller is the key to all of her problems and living her best life. She is starting to fret about the pressures of Prom: finding a dress that will fit her, finding a date who will adore her and being a daughter that does not disappoint her mother. These pressures become intensified the closer she gets to the big school event and with the entrance of a family member she doesn’t see often, for good reason.
Told in alternating perspectives, Age 16 brings together a layered, and through coming of age story about three generations of Chinese Women and the joys and heartbreaks of being a teenager. When Roz’s estranged por por (grandmother) arrives out of the blue for a seemingly unplanned visit, all three generations are now under one roof. Their relationships to each other, delicate and not without tensions are now under a microscope and fair game to be poked, prodded and dissected with family secrets bound to spill out.
The next chapter brings us to sixteen year old Lydia in Hong Kong in 1972. Bespectacled Lydia is a cheerful girl who loves to dance. She’s well liked by her friends and lives alone with her mother, critical of everything she does or says and largely absent in her life nowadays. When Lydia muses about the future and possible careers in the arts, her mother shoots all of them down. Instead she reminds her the path forward is with a good husband who will take care of her. As a young woman who desperately wants to gain approval from her mother, all the verbal hits from her — especially about the way she looks, start to take their toll on her. Somewhere along the way, she wonders if her ticket to happiness is leaving Hong Kong and starting over in Toronto.
The last and earlier perspective is Sixteen-year-old Mei Laan in Guangdong, China back in 1954. Without many future prospects available to her, this young woman works the fields. She’s friendless, not very sociable and stands her ground to anyone who would challenge her. She’s feisty in a way that makes her a target. She dreams of leaving her village and escaping her life where she is second best to her brothers or treated as a second class citizen as a woman who should only dream of being a wife and mother. Mei Laan is overjoyed to see a brighter future when news of an arranged marriage arrives as a golden ticket out of her small and dull village.
The alternating perspectives in Age 16 may seem a bit odd but start to make sense once you realize that Lydia and Mei Laan are related to Roz. In fact, these chapters earlier in time are the teenage versions–starting with the sixteen year old versions of Roz’s mother and grandmother, respectfully. As the chapter shifts back to Roz in the year 2000 in Toronto, we shift back to seeing the three women in the year 2000 where Roz is sixteen years old.
Visually, Fung makes sure to label each chapter with the year and place and a peculiar and effective color scheme to mark the chapter apart. Roz’s timeline as a sixteen year old is colored in purple. Lydia, her mother’s days as a sixteen year old are colored with an orange hue. Lastly, Mei Lan, Lydia’s mother and Roz’s mother, are colored blue. Readers should be able to follow along to see key items that serve the narrative well from each woman that make for some impactful scenes towards the end of the book.
What Rosena Fung really nails in Age 16 is that inter-generational trauma travels from mother to daughter. I think of Roz’s mother making remarks on what the teen is eating and making the girl feel embarrassed or frustrated. While her own mother comes to visit, Lydia sees a snack that she likes but is discouraged to buy because of the cutting remarks from her own mother that it is fattening. There is a narrative thread about body shaming, the very real life consequences of it on one’s self esteem and life–and also on negative body image and how the love of a mother often feels unattainable.
What I love throughout reading are the small narrative details Fung sews into Roz’s chapters that include glimpses of the women that the sixteen year old is related to. When going to the mall with her mother and daughter, Lydia dances to street musicians–reminding readers of her youth where she danced with friends and at events. When Mei Laan sees how fancy the dresses are for Prom, she verbally discourages at the opulence of it all which her own daughter Lydia counters. Mei Laan remembers a childhood of just barely surviving, her family’s wealth and good standing erased while surviving the violence of is implied to be the Sino-Japanese War.
After reading Age 16 and looking back on the cover, I feel my heart strings being tugged on. Taking into consideration that color is very, very important visually: sixteen year old Roz stands in the middle, with the teenage versions of her mother and her grandmother standing behind her.Roz’s Por Por aka her grandmother, Mei Laan in the background colored with a bluish tint. Roz’s mother, Lydia’s face in a pinkish tint between her mother with Roz’s full body with her prom dress in purple.
The coloring and placement of these young women by the author further demonstrate the narrative thread she tells throughout the book as stated by the publisher: “how every generation is affected by those that came before, and affect those that come after. As much as inter-generational trauma is carried in the chapters — narrative wise, the rebellion of each said woman that carried them through life’s trials is also present on the page.
Whether that was immigrating to a new country for better opportunities, refusing to stay in a terrible marriage or making your own Prom experience, these young women choose their own destinies and choose to choose themselves. A thread of self acceptance and self love flows into the later chapters as evidence of all three women: grandmother, mother and grand-daughter choosing better and choosing themselves.
Age 16 is about the relationship between mothers and daughters. Rosena Fung’s latest book is also about not depriving yourself of what you love and what you need to survive and thrive. Suggested for readers aged twelve and up, Age 16 paints a complex story about three generations of Chinese Women and the way they slowly find themselves back to each other after years of fumbling and rejecting each other.
The author crafted a nuanced story about Chinese Women and the violence they faced whether that be microaggressions in a store in Toronto, cat calling by American soldiers or men feeling that they were entitled to a young woman’s body and status in Hong Kong. One caveat of criticism of Age 16 is that I would have loved longer chapters from Lydia and Mei Laan, especially Mei Laan. As they serve as connective tissue to Roz’s chapters, I felt if they were a bit longer with a bit more context, these two, along with readers would have more closure and a smoother ending for the book.
In the author’s note, Rosena Fung writes that this book is the one she always wanted to write, even when she did not know that she would one day have this in print. To quote her: “This work is a book of fiction, but it is also a generational memoir.” She notes that the journey of this book was taking place even before she was born, the story being carried by the women before her. I stumbled upon this recent artist profile where Fung elaborates on lessons learned from her mother and grandmother — that ultimately did not stick in regards to gender roles and body image. This context was illuminating when I think about the book’s narrative and the start of the unlearning of Roz does before the book’s end.
I love the framing of this book’s journey by the author as it fills me with such joy to know that she was able to make this book, this love letter to her own mother and por por. Age 16 best embodies the need for tenderness for the women in our lives–especially when the world has been so cruel to them–mothers and daughters must strive to be the greatest example of love and care for each other in this world. I love that Age 16 focuses on the girlhood and womanhood of not one but three Chinese women — an incredible gift in the graphic novel category for those seeking memoirs by women creatives and women creatives of the Asian Diaspora.
Age 16 is published through Annick Press and can be found where comics are sold. Thanks to Netgalley and Annick Press for allowing me to have a review copy! Cover Image and other imagery courtesy of the Annick Press Instagram and website.
Rosena Fung is a cartoonist and illustrator based in Toronto, Canada. She is the creator of the graphic novel Living With Viola. Her second graphic novel Age 16 was published this Summer.
Her illustration clients include Chickadee Magazine, The Bentway, The Globe and Mail, The Boston Globe, Chronicle Review of Higher Education, CBC Arts, PLANSPONSOR, Maisonneuve, Bust Magazine, Swerve Magazine, Tridel Corporation, and the Toronto Transit Commission. She has created work for magazines, newspapers, and public art murals.
When she is not drawing, Rosena can be found teaching illustration, vending at zine fairs, and going to the library. Her favourite activities also include petting cats, eating snacks, and learning to play both acoustic and electric guitar (she is not great at it but it doesn’t matter, it makes her happy to cradle her rockstar dreams!). She lives with her partner and the most adorable cat in the entire universe.
Her name is pronounced “Rosanna”.
Find her online at her personal website here and on Instagram.
Based in Canada, Annick Press publishes dynamic, groundbreaking fiction and nonfiction for children and teens, and their books have been recognized with numerous awards and honors. Their website states “We strive to create educational, entertaining books that will spark a lifelong love affair with the written word”. See more of them online.
Carrie McClain is an Californian native who navigates the world as writer, editor, and media scholar who firmly believes that we can and we should critique the media we consume. She once aided Cindi Mayweather in avoiding capture. See more of her on Twitter (X) and a few other places she can be found online.
