This graphic novel was executed and handled brilliantly despite the contents of the story. I am so proud of Katie for sharing such a personal story but using it to help others in similar situations. I was able to relate to the author hugely and seeing her recovery throughout definitely made me feel better in regards to my own recovery. Thank you so much to the author

This was a roller coaster of a book. The colour difference throughout the book confused me a little but the art was something else. I found it a little weird on the few occasions when it showed the character without clothing and was disturbed by other things as well. I don't know how the character really felt, but I do have a rough idea of their mind set. I could understand how hard it would be, or seems to be.

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a huge tome of a graphic novel - over five hundred pages, and at that size, probably too long, but in some ways I saw the whole thing as an integrated work - we were meant to suffer through those long years of trying to overcome multiple eating disorders and body image problems, and a significantly shorter graphic novel would have trivialized this.

While I would still argue for something less than five hundred, I wouldn't argue for something dramatically shorter, because it really helps to bond with and empathize with the author as she tells what is a very personal and painful story of desperately trying to cope with a negative body image and the sheer effort required to set things right. We all, as a society, share the responsibility as we should also share the guilt for making women feel ugly and sexually incompetent and for forcing them into doing things no sane person would do were they not constantly bombarded by negative views of the female body.

Everyone who has ever been through a supermarket checkout with their eyes open cannot fail to have seen that on one side women are told via endless trashy magazines that they are fat, ugly, and useless in bed, while on the other side of that confining aisle - the very width of which would make anyone feel corpulent, they are offered glorious candy and sugar-laden sodas to comfort them and help them cope with the negative feelings with which the other side of the aisle has imbued them. This is worse than pornography because it is out there in public, in the face of women and children, every day, every TV show, every commercial, every music video, every trip to the store, every movie you watch, every book you read.

It can come as a surprise to no-one that far too many women end-up in a position like the one Katie Green found herself in: not slim enough, not pretty enough, not good enough. Guess what? It's our screwed up misplaced-priority society which is not good enough, and that's why we need stories like this in our face to ensure we never forget what we're doing to women. This and many stories like it need to be required reading. I recommend it unreservedly.

Wow. Just wow. I finished this book in one sitting and am still sitting here trying to review it. So many times I had to stop and just soak in what I was seeing on the page. This book deals with so much (eating disorders, depression, non consensual sex, suicide, bullying, the list goes on.) And to top it all off knowing that a real person, the author, has gone through it makes it all that much more real. I very much appreciated the art style. It was very simplistic, letting you see yourself (or someone you know) in the characters. You could be the friend, or the sister, or lover of someone that has gone through something similar. This book speaks to everyone. The emotional struggle is apparent through the whole book. When Katie goes through the toughest times the black mass of squiggles seems to take up the whole page, and during lesser times the squiggle is smaller almost non existent, but still present. I imagine if Katie were to draw her bookself today there still would be an ever present squiggle. I also really appreciated the large portion of the book that dealt with anorexia as an illness. Though at times it was used to show that Katie wasn't "sick" because she wasn't hospitalized, there was always the back and forth conversation in her head about how people on the outside didn't know she was struggling and how we as the readers get to see through the window into her head and see that it really isn't an illness that you can always see on the outside. Overall this book really illustrated what it looks like to live with a mental illness from the inside. I would recommend this book to everyone but especially to people who have someone in their lives dealing with mental illness as a way see what someone can be going through on the inside.

I read this in conjunction with the other graphic memoir, Ink in Water: An Illustrated Memoir about an eating disorder coming out later this year. Lighter Than My Shadow was ultimately a more harrowing read than Ink In Water.

Katie develops her eating disorder slowly, as part of other obsessive habits. When she collapses at school as part of her self-starvation she is brought home to recover from the help of a therapist, the supervision of her family, and sessions with a male "alternative therapist" who operates out of a teepee in the woods. He gives her family and her friends the creeps, but Katie feels better than ever after her sessions with him, and eventually alienates her friends and family to go into more advanced treatments with him, even as she still struggles with her eating disorder and self-esteem.

The best thing about this book is that it showed the evolution of an eating disorder. It's not as simple as anorexia/bulimia, as eating and binging are tied into other things as self worth, and control, and a myriad of other issues. Katie doesn't magically get over her anorexia, and she doesn't magically let go of her eating disorder. The clouds of her issues literally hover around her in almost every picture of the book. Many pictures show Katie fading into nothing, floating through space, or feeding the angry, hungry mouth of her stomach, which perfectly illustrates her feelings of helplessness and frustration.

This book was a lot sadder than Ink in Water, and the ending felt a lot more tentative. While Ink In Water ended with a powerful message of working to love yourself (a message complete with lots of exclamation points), Lighter Than My Shadow shows Katie still fighting with flashbacks, nightmares, and the dark, spiky cloud that still follows her sometimes. It is sad, but it is well worth it to read for the message of hope that Katie Green somehow managed to convey: that recovery and living a life of joy is worth the fight it takes to get there.

Highly recommended for anyone!

I really wanted to read the book because the title and the blurb were very catchy but the ebook couldn't be retrieved so I couldn't rate it!

Lighter Than My Shadow is a memoir about the author/illustrator's struggle with anorexia. The art adds an important dimension to the story. This was a hard book to read for the raw struggle of the author with both anorexia and sexual abuse (Trigger warnings for both are in play for this one). Beautifully rendered art and writing.

A no holds barred and often disturbing look at bulimia, anorexia and sexual assault from the point of view of a survivor.

Why can't you just EAT? Why can't you just STOP?

Katie Green's Lighter Than My Shadow takes us inside the mind of her younger self, at first anorexic, later a binge-eater. At first, it's tempting to blame Katie's parents for the signal they send to her about food, but soon it becomes evident that Katie's brain is hard-wired to respond by trying to grab control of any and all situations. Lighter Than My Shadow isn't just a graphic novel about eating disorders, it's an important look at how mental illness can sneak into a pre-adolescent head without notice, disturbing the child and baffling those who love her.

Katie Green's spare drawings are deceptively simple; her character's expressions can change with just a dash of ink. The way she illustrates emotions -- her confusion a tumbleweed of ink that follows her everywhere and takes over the page; delight, and being high, spots of glowing color; consciousness as dotted, fanning waves, are simple yet genius.

In fact, the simplicity of her drawings may incorrectly signal to readers that this is a graphic novel for the pre-teen set. It is not: Lighter Than My Shadow graphically deals with sexuality, rape and mental illness, along with some nudity, I would recommend for 14 and up.

Wow... this book really packs a punch.

An extremely poignant story about a teen battling an eating disorder and sexual abuse and the long-term effect on her life from both. It did an excellent job of explaining how having an eating disorder isn't just a phase that a person can grow out of - it takes years of work, setbacks, therapy and relapses and is probably something the person has to battle in some form or the other, for the rest of their life.

I liked the drawing-style and found it fascinating to see how Katie Green used the media to depict the specter of an eating disorder without having to use any words at all.

I did miss getting full closure on her battle with sexual abuse (mainly knowing whether or not she ever reported it), but appreciate that in real life we just don't always get that kind of closure, and that reporting it would probably have taken more strength that she had at the time.

A really brilliant graphic memoir that I highly recommend.

I went into this graphic novel knowing nothing about it; it was on the "read now" list on NetGalley, and I was in the mood for a quick graphic novel. (Joke's on me - this graphic novel is over 500 pages long!)

Essentially, Lighter Than My Shadow is a story about eating disorders, body dysmorphia, and sexual assault. It's a memoir in the form of a graphic novel, written to tell the story of Katie Green's own childhood and teen life. It's a very sad and haunting story, but unfortunately, it's just not a very enjoyable read, either. It has incredibly slow pacing for a GN, which is unusual in my experience, and the scenes are extremely repetitive.

If you're particularly fond of memoirs about mental illness, you may be interested in this title, but otherwise, I'd pass it up

Lighter Than My Shadow by Katie Green is a beautifully drawn and rendered story. It follows the author's debilitating struggle with anorexia and bulimia, but also deals with the consequences of the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of someone she trusted. I loved the imagery Katie Green used to signal the overpowering control these diseases had over her life -- a disordered and tangled mess of a cloud that followed and enveloped her. It was her constant suffocating companion.

Some of the imagery was a bit on the nose. The giant mouth to represent her bouts with binging or the obvious dialogue when talking to her therapist. But for a teen reading this book, I think that sort of thing is probably the best way to drive home a point.

All in all, I thought this was a very powerful story told in a very honest way.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2099088061?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
https://thebookobserver.blogspot.com/2017/08/review-6-lighter-than-my-shadow.html

Lighter Than My Shadow is Katie Green’s graphic novel/memoir that covers her relationship with food from childhood through early adulthood. This is a behemoth of a story, coming in at just over 500 pages. The art was simplistic, but well suited for the mood.

I’m not sure if I can say that I truly enjoyed this book. After all, a majority of it is Katie Green recounting difficult and unhappy events. All the same, her story resonated with me, and it is something that I have continued to think about since I read it. The ending especially was truly moving.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this book to everyone. Lighter Than My Shadow, like many books/movies/tv shows that talk about eating disorders and trauma in detail have the potential to be triggering. Outside of that, however, I think that anyone would be able to take something away from Katie’s story, and I definitely recommend to pick this up if this is a topic that interests you.

A memoir of the brutal road that is recovery portrayed with graphic punctuation. This book carries the weight of its 500 pages and the juxtaposition against the grip of anorexia is impossible to be lost on the reader. This is a stunning example of the healing power of words for both the reader and the writer.

What an utter gut-wrencher. I related so much to this book...to the childhood/teen years most especially. I never developed an eating disorder myself...but I was accused of having one for years (metabolism is a bitch on either side of that coin). It was almost painful to read this...but it was good, a fascinating glimpse into the mind of someone who truly thought they were "normal", lived a happy life, but the beasts crept in.

Have never come across an eating disorder memoir/nonfiction work like this before, and it's certainly a refreshing method of conveying the trials and tribulations of the illness, as well as the moments of hope. I've read very little within the genre of graphic novels, but after hearing about this book a few times - as someone with an eating disorder myself - I was interested in seeing how the author was able to visually walk readers through her own story.
I think this is a unique work. And powerful, not only in its visual communication, but also because I'm sure there are some people that may respond better or be more open to reading a graphic novel about eating disorders rather than turning to the standard text-based memoir.
The only aspect of the actual story that I had issue with was the attitude surrounding 'fat'; as someone who's struggled with body image herself, I can relate to using the term to denote negative experiences and feelings, but through what I've learned within the body acceptance/fat activism movement, I've been working on challenging those internal and socially-ingrained biases. I think those of us writing about eating disorders need to be more aware of the messages we send when we demonize the concept of being fat, particularly in how it may affect those readers with eating disorders that do inhabit larger bodies.
That being said, I read this book in two days. I almost never read books that fast, and although the fact that this is a graphic novel largely contributed to that reading speed, the storytelling itself was captivating, raw, honest, and inspiring.
**Major trigger warning within the book for eating disorder behaviors/thoughts (of course) and sexual abuse**

Very grateful to have had the opportunity to read this for free through NetGalley. 5/5 stars

This book is wonderful. It is brutally honest. The story is told in such a gentle way, despite the harsh subject matter. It touched my heart, and has reminded me of how I need to be more forgiving of myself.

Katie Green documents her eating disorder beginning in early childhood through her college years in this amazing graphic novel. There are a lot of serious issues addressed in this novel but they are dealt with in a compassionate and gentle manner.
A+ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I was immediately drawn in by the illustrations which provided me a window into the author's thoughts and feelings surrounding her eating disorder. I was able to relate and better understand her struggles due to the strength of her images. A very poignant graphic memoir of a woman's battle with an eating disorder as well as her triumphs.

One of the heartbreaking and beautiful looks at the effects of shame and need for a sense of control I have ever read. I literally could not stop reading.