I adored the ways in which Hungry Ghost examines family and our own body. It’s an achingly tender story which breaks – and puts back – your heart again. For fans of graphic novels and contemporary stories, this is a must read! Keep reading this book review for my full thoughts.
Summary
Valerie Chu is quiet, studious, and above all, thin. No one, not even her best friend Jordan, knows that she has been binging and purging for years. But when tragedy strikes, Val finds herself taking a good, hard look at her priorities, her choices, and her own body. The path to happiness may lead her away from her hometown and her mother’s toxic projections—but first she will have to find the strength to seek help.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
TW: disordered eating, fatphobia
From a craft perspective, I definitely loved the art style of Hungry Ghost. Everything from the color palette – which felt like a pastel hug – all the way to the attention to detail. It was just exactly my style! Hungry Ghost is also a story about how hard we try to be good. The pressure of the expectations we can heap onto our hearts and onto our vision of the future. On all the things we hold dear to us and who we are as people. I felt for Valerie and the ways she – and we – are bombarded on the internet with images and rhetoric.
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How they just speak to our own intrusive thoughts. The connections we can make in our mind to how being thin is supposed to just bestow happiness. When in reality, our bodies are pieces of us, they aren’t separate things to ‘exert control’ over. Hungry Ghost is tender. It’s a story about love and acceptance, about needing to find our own sense of happiness. It also features some gorgeous scenes of friendship! All in all, such a gem of a YA graphic novel. Find Hungry Ghost on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, & Blackwells.