I found this graphic novel to be absolutely gutting: a real, vulnerable, and powerful story about intergenerational conflict, self-image, and how even those who love us can end up hurting us. Valeria has to navigate her mother's constant criticism and pressure to maintain a desired weight, projecting her own body issues (those she inherited from her mother, and so son, and so on) onto her daughter in a misguided attempt to protect her from the world's ridicule. This has deleterious effects on Valeria's self esteem, pushing her into disordered eating and extremely painful dysmorphia. The art has a beautiful, soft, melancholy aesthetic, one that reinforces Valeria's inner turmoil. There is much for young women to identify with here, and I think many, unfortunately, will recognize Valeria's pain (as I did).

This was a powerful and bittersweet story about the impact of family, friends, and body image issues. As someone who has struggled with body image issues and familial pressure on such images, Hungry Ghost hit hard, pulling no punches showing the characters in their most vulnerable moments.
This story will probably not be for everyone, but I think everyone should read it.

Thank you to NetGalley and First Second Books for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a powerful and beautiful story about the impact of generational pressure, and how people who want the best for us can sometimes still be harmful. I did think the resolution happened kind of quickly, and made it seem like it was easy to overcome years of thinking and behaving in harmful ways

This story hits hard, as someone who has struggled with my body image on and off for all of my life. I don't know if the resolution was the best, but I think its different for everyone so that doesn't matter.

Hungry Ghost is a comic about eating disorder, friendship and family. Valeria is Asian and her family likes traditions her mom being an amazing cook. At the same the mom is very strict about Val not getting fat and she keeps pestering her daughter, since Val's friend is, well, chubby. This pressure makes Val bulimic and her father ends up dying too and even fat girls get boyfriends. This all is like a spiral that makes our main character want and need a change. The story isn't too suffocating, but more like full of hope. In a way it feels easy even. I would've liked to know why the mom was the way she was. Also, it seems too easy to Val to free herself from her mom. Perhaps these pages weren't enough to get the story fully work. There's a little bit too much in the story as we also have the death of the father and the Paris trip.

The art looks nice and the soft colors are a good choice surely. Everything looks nice and pleasant even though the topic is horrible. Perhaps it's needed though, since now the comic is interestingly balanced. The topic is very important and finally a lighter way to go through it.