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4.42 AVERAGE
4.42 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Sexual assault
reflective
fast-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Sexual assault
Moderate: Suicide attempt
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Sexual harassment
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
A GORGEOUS story of the hardship of recovering from an eating disorder and how to forgive yourself. đź–¤
Really, really powerful stuff. Graphic novels man, they can do some fantastic stuff to convey emotion and feeling, and even some simplistic thing like scribbles can really build this feeling of unease, and angst. So well done.
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
fast-paced
This is such a hard book for me to review.
I always rate graphic novels lower than if it where a novel usually because I just don’t connect to the story as well.
That being said I think this is a very important and heartbreaking, but inspiring story. I think you need to be in a good headspace for this and sadly I was not because this is insanely triggering( at least for me). Trigger warnings for eating disorders, sexual abuse, and suicidal thoughts( there’s more but I feel like those late the main ones. I would recommend this to see someone’s first hand experience with these topics, but I would only recommend it if you can handle the topics and if your in a good headspace.
I always rate graphic novels lower than if it where a novel usually because I just don’t connect to the story as well.
That being said I think this is a very important and heartbreaking, but inspiring story. I think you need to be in a good headspace for this and sadly I was not because this is insanely triggering( at least for me). Trigger warnings for eating disorders, sexual abuse, and suicidal thoughts( there’s more but I feel like those late the main ones. I would recommend this to see someone’s first hand experience with these topics, but I would only recommend it if you can handle the topics and if your in a good headspace.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Bullying, Drug use, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts
I really wish that I could give this book more stars - this book deserves so much attention and praise. I love that this is displayed as a graphic novel because Katie Green does spectacular work and you can FEEL every single piece that she puts on paper.
This book is what we(ANYONE who has struggled with ANY type of addiction) have been waiting for - what we have needed to see to know that we aren’t alone, that there is struggle, and that everyone’s struggle is unique. This work of art is something that everyone should read, experience, and feel. The book may be written about anorexia, but I think it will hit home for anyone that has had to struggle with/through addiction or has known someone who has struggled with addictions.
This book is what we(ANYONE who has struggled with ANY type of addiction) have been waiting for - what we have needed to see to know that we aren’t alone, that there is struggle, and that everyone’s struggle is unique. This work of art is something that everyone should read, experience, and feel. The book may be written about anorexia, but I think it will hit home for anyone that has had to struggle with/through addiction or has known someone who has struggled with addictions.
Lighter Than My Shadow is an incredibly well done book. The art and symbolism punctuate the feelings of the protagonist to make the invisible visible. The way that Katie Green plays with the backgrounds and shadings effectively communicates the fear, sadness and lack of control the protagonist feels. The black cloud represents her mental health struggles with depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. It appears throughout the book in novel ways. At times it surrounds a separate narrative that the protagonist tells herself different from what it is actually happening in the story.
This is hard to read for content reasons, but is a moving, intense book. I would definitely recommend this book. Although I do want to make sure that the reader is aware of the content including eating disorders, suicidal thoughts, and sexual trauma.
This is hard to read for content reasons, but is a moving, intense book. I would definitely recommend this book. Although I do want to make sure that the reader is aware of the content including eating disorders, suicidal thoughts, and sexual trauma.
On friday I accidentally got to work an hour early, and didn’t notice til late in the morning. By the time I got to my break I was too tired to read my actual book so I needed a graphic novel. We always have this book in Shipment so I grabbed it. It ended up bringing me to tears and I stayed after work to finish it even though I had foolishly come early and wanted to get out of there. It is a memoir of the author’s struggle with food throughout her life, starting as a child with being a picky eater, to severe anorexia, to binge eating in her college years. It’s extremely detailed and honest. It also chronicles the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of an “energy healer” her parents brought her to after traditional therapies stopped working. A brutal read tbh. Sometimes even with an idyllic childhood and supportive fairly chill family you still end up an extremely anxious perfectionist for no reason!
Obviously lots to relate to here. Especially when she wants to get “good grades” at eating disorder treatment. She cares more about doing everything to perfection (i e following her meal plan, doing the best food journals, doing A quality work) rather than actually healing. This all really reminded me of myself as a youngin.
I loved the art style and the depression squiggles that followed her and the paper foldings for the panels. The book has shiny thick paper and effective greyscale colors. It is repetitive in a way that perfectly captures the nonlinear nature of recovering from something like this. Green does a wonderful job of conveying how her illness manifested. I appreciate the way this book shows how eating issues can morph over time. I saw this tiktok the other day of a girl who was on-her-deathbed anorexic, and now she is a bodybuilder with huge muscles. It was meant to be inspirational. On one hand I felt happy for her that she doesn’t look like she’s going to go into heart failure at any minute, but I couldn’t help but think that her brain was still exactly the same just obsessing over bodybuilding rather than restricting. The underlying control issues seemed unchanged. But I am armchair psychologizing someone I saw for a minute long TikTok, so what do I know.
Not to be a “I need my experience reflected exactly to like it” type of person, but I just gotta say that there are so many memoirs of anorexia and bulimia, when will the ARFID girlies get our time to Share Our Stories…. There are some similarities of course, esp the anxiety, but the only things I’ve read that accurately capture the experience are way more abstract like The Vegetarian by Han Kang or Bartleby The Scrivener. But of course this has nothing to do with the quality of this book, just something I was thinking about while reading.
Obviously lots to relate to here. Especially when she wants to get “good grades” at eating disorder treatment. She cares more about doing everything to perfection (i e following her meal plan, doing the best food journals, doing A quality work) rather than actually healing. This all really reminded me of myself as a youngin.
I loved the art style and the depression squiggles that followed her and the paper foldings for the panels. The book has shiny thick paper and effective greyscale colors. It is repetitive in a way that perfectly captures the nonlinear nature of recovering from something like this. Green does a wonderful job of conveying how her illness manifested. I appreciate the way this book shows how eating issues can morph over time. I saw this tiktok the other day of a girl who was on-her-deathbed anorexic, and now she is a bodybuilder with huge muscles. It was meant to be inspirational. On one hand I felt happy for her that she doesn’t look like she’s going to go into heart failure at any minute, but I couldn’t help but think that her brain was still exactly the same just obsessing over bodybuilding rather than restricting. The underlying control issues seemed unchanged. But I am armchair psychologizing someone I saw for a minute long TikTok, so what do I know.
Not to be a “I need my experience reflected exactly to like it” type of person, but I just gotta say that there are so many memoirs of anorexia and bulimia, when will the ARFID girlies get our time to Share Our Stories…. There are some similarities of course, esp the anxiety, but the only things I’ve read that accurately capture the experience are way more abstract like The Vegetarian by Han Kang or Bartleby The Scrivener. But of course this has nothing to do with the quality of this book, just something I was thinking about while reading.