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dominicangirl's review against another edition
hopeful
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming and Eating disorder
keelymightread's review against another edition
emotional
informative
tense
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder and Self harm
Moderate: Grief and Death of parent
Minor: Body shaming
blithesquesttoread's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, and Vomit
Moderate: Death of parent
charlsie4's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body shaming and Eating disorder
fkshg8465's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This was excellent. There were some parallels to my own life, though far less extreme. It probably resonated with a lot of us Asian women and girls. There’s already so much pressure on us and the way we look, and is almost always wrapped up as a concern over our health, but the extra layer of Confucian guilt and filial piety takes to a whole other level. So I’m grateful this book was written, because as extreme as it was, I’m also sure there are actually families this intense or even more. Wish I’d had a book like this in middle school. It would’ve helped me get out of my head on what it means to be a good daughter and why an artificial definition of thin is meaningless.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Grief, and Death of parent
turidt's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Grief, and Death of parent
Moderate: Vomit
haleymonkey5000's review
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Eating disorder, and Fatphobia
Moderate: Death, Grief, and Death of parent
Minor: Vomit
bookcaptivated's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Vomit, Grief, and Death of parent
nickwwelch's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Eating disorder, and Fatphobia
lawbooks600's review against another edition
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Representation: Asian characters
Score: Five points out of ten.
I saw Hungry Ghost circling my recommendations until I picked it up and added it to this website. It has high ratings overall, but only some reviews are positive. After reading a review, I feared I would be disappointed again when I finished Hungry Ghost. Unfortunately, that turned out to be true.
It starts with the first character I see, Valerie Chu, or Valerie for short, recounting her early life. She most prominently remembers her mother influencing her to be thin by not eating much. That soon turned into an eating disorder where Valerie now fulfils her mother's and her expectations to be skinny by binging and then purging. If Valerie were fat, I wouldn't mind. However, Valerie's mother constantly and subtly body-shames Valerie to keep her thin body, much to Valerie's dismay. Toward the latter half of Hungry Ghost, Valerie, alongside her friend, whose name I forgot, goes to Paris, but at the end of the school trip, she hears the news that her father died in a plane crash. For what?
My gripes with Hungry Ghost start as Valerie restricts her diet and gets away with it for the most part, sending a horrifying message that binging and purging have no consequences and one can never escape an eating disorder, but one can. I soon hated Valerie for shouting at her friend and her mother. The last person wasn't much better either. The ending was atrocious, as the two characters did a magical 180. The former stopped binging and purging, and the latter stopped body shaming. How can Valerie love her mother even though she treated Valerie like this? It doesn't make any sense. It would be better if Valerie lived without her mother. I'm so dissatisfied.
Score: Five points out of ten.
I saw Hungry Ghost circling my recommendations until I picked it up and added it to this website. It has high ratings overall, but only some reviews are positive. After reading a review, I feared I would be disappointed again when I finished Hungry Ghost. Unfortunately, that turned out to be true.
It starts with the first character I see, Valerie Chu, or Valerie for short, recounting her early life. She most prominently remembers her mother influencing her to be thin by not eating much. That soon turned into an eating disorder where Valerie now fulfils her mother's and her expectations to be skinny by binging and then purging. If Valerie were fat, I wouldn't mind. However, Valerie's mother constantly and subtly body-shames Valerie to keep her thin body, much to Valerie's dismay. Toward the latter half of Hungry Ghost, Valerie, alongside her friend, whose name I forgot, goes to Paris, but at the end of the school trip, she hears the news that her father died in a plane crash. For what?
My gripes with Hungry Ghost start as Valerie restricts her diet and gets away with it for the most part, sending a horrifying message that binging and purging have no consequences and one can never escape an eating disorder, but one can. I soon hated Valerie for shouting at her friend and her mother. The last person wasn't much better either. The ending was atrocious, as the two characters did a magical 180. The former stopped binging and purging, and the latter stopped body shaming. How can Valerie love her mother even though she treated Valerie like this? It doesn't make any sense. It would be better if Valerie lived without her mother. I'm so dissatisfied.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Death, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, and Grief
Minor: Vomit
Full trigger warnings: Death of a father in a plane crash, grief and loss depiction, emesis mentioned, body shaming, internalised body shaming, restrictive dieting, eating disorder