3.5/5

First, the illustrations completed entirely in graphite are absolutely stunning. Some drawings are very detailed while others seem blurred, but both convey so much emotion.

Second, the topic of body shaming and self-esteem issues are ones I think many people can relate to. Marie-Noëlle Hébert's portrayal of this is very personal and raw and real, from her family's commentary on what she eats at dinner, to her mother's suggestions of holding in her stomach, to struggling shopping for clothes, and looking in the mirror and feeling ugly. It's such a sad, vulnerable story about the harsh beauty standards woman in particular feel pressured to abide by. This, of course, includes discussions of mental health, which this novel carefully addresses in terms of alienation and isolation, suicide and depression, body shaming, and emotional eating.

My main complaint is that it's too short, and as a result, it feels like certain aspects are merely glossed over in ways that don't work toward a resolution. For example, her relationship with her parents is complex and traumatic in many ways, but when she confronts her father, it seems more like an exercise in letting go than moving forward through conversation toward resolution. Though she does achieve a form of resolution in other ways, this also seems like a quick solution, even though it's portrayed over many years. The sheer length of the novel makes it difficult to connect to the main character and become entirely invested in her journey.

The sudden shifts in both time and topic are also quite jarring, which undermines the vulnerability and the emotive connections readers make to her character. The writing itself is also a bit jarring and feels incomplete. The narration and dialogue feel overwhelmed by the illustrations, which carry the novel. With more narration and perhaps more dialogue, the writing could work together with the illustrations rather than try to compete with them. More writing would also add supplementary background information that could help the text feel less jarring and incomplete.

Overall, I enjoyed this graphic novel. The translation is very well done, as are the graphite illustrations. I really enjoyed the honesty and vulnerability presented through the subject matter.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and House of Anansi Press/Groundwood Books for granting me access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Releases April 6, 2021

Content warning: body shaming

I received an ARC of My Body In Pieces by Marie-Noëlle Hébert thanks to the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Blurb thanks to NetGalley:

"A deeply emotional graphic memoir of a young woman’s struggles with self-esteem and body image issues.

All Marie-Noëlle wants is to be thin and beautiful. She wishes that her thighs were slimmer, that her stomach lay flatter. Maybe then her parents wouldn’t make fun of her eating habits at family dinners, the girls at school wouldn’t call her ugly, and the boy she likes would ask her out. This all-too-relatable memoir follows Marie-Noëlle from childhood to her twenties, as she navigates what it means to be born into a body that doesn’t fall within society’s beauty standards.

When, as a young teen, Marie-Noëlle begins a fitness regime in an effort to change her body, her obsession with her weight and size only grows and she begins having suicidal thoughts. Fortunately for Marie-Noëlle, a friend points her in the direction of therapy, and slowly, she begins to realize that she doesn’t need the approval of others to feel whole.

Marie-Noëlle Hébert’s debut graphic memoir is visually stunning and drawn entirely in graphite pencil, depicting a deeply personal and emotional journey that encourages us to all be ourselves without apology."

Review:

I wanted to love this book. It is about a really important topic and the artwork was unique. But there was no plot, at least not a clear one. This is a graphic novel memoir, which doesn't lend itself to much background information, and the way this one is told there is not really 'scene development'. Each page-ish is one scene made of a handful of blocks. It was also incredibly short, even for a graphic novel. Yes, it addresses body shaming and body image and mental illness, all aspects of the book that I love. But I wanted it to be more engaging so that high school students would be compelled to read and pass on to their friends. Similar to Go Ask Alice in the early 2000s. But this just wasn't that.

My Body in Pieces by Marie-Noelle Hebert is a short graphic novel about a girl who has struggled with body images issues since a young age. She writes about the things she did to cope and the feelings she had and how she ultimately overcame her insecurities in some ways to be able to be happy with her life. I thought some of this was a bit scattered for me. It needed to be developed a bit more so that the flow was better. The illustrations were very good and they really carried the story through. I liked this book and think it’s an important message, but I didn’t completely love it.

This book chewed me up and spat me out.
I've read it three times and the emotional hit doesn't waver. Large sections of these wordless images highlight pain, anguish and despair.

Marie-Noëlle Hébert's graphic memoir addresses her relationship with her body. It's one most, if not all women can connect to. Anyone who has ever dieted and or exercised to try and lose weight, will connect with much, if not all of this book.

The timeline jumps around from the present to different times in the past. We meet her at twenty, binge eating to shut out the noise of self hatred. It doesn't work. Eventually she reveals how her negative body image evolved over time.

Hébert was a chubby baby who grew up to be a large sized girl in a world that idolized thin princesses.

To the clothing industry, children like her don't exist. She loved to dance but had to give it up. When she was eight, her mother purchased women's clothes for her and hemmed them to fit.

As she grew older she endured bullying by her peers.

Family dinners, rather than being joyful celebrations, became more bombardment of negative comments.

By her teens she came to find fault with her body piece by piece. She ended up internalizing the fat shaming.

It isn't that she wasn't healthy. She played soccer and their coach worked them so hard she lost weight. Terrified of gaining the weight back, at the end of the season she joined the school running club.

Her obsession with dieting, exercising and losing weight wasn't enough to address her need to be seen, to be loved. She writes that she is "fat, but full of nothing."

Coming home from a running marathon, her father called her a Fat Cow. Her response begins with I HATE YOU, but ends up with I HATE ME. He continued to abuse her by calling her fat, and fat ass.

At the age of 17 she left home. While she revelled in the times spent with friends, she still never felt loved or seen. When her self loathing and depression overwhelmed her, she isolated herself. One friend, Matilda, stayed beside her. When Marie confided her suicidal thoughts to her, Matilda recommended a therapist.

Slowly she began to heal, to change her self talk, to start to love herself. She eventually became strong enough to confront her father.

Marie-Noëlle Hébert leaves us with some important messages about how we imprint who we are from what we learn in our families.

"Women pass down their body shame from generation to generation...
Tradition is strong.
The judgement of others.
The lack of self-esteem.
To not be fat forever.
They thought it was more important to teach me how to hold in my stomach than teach me to stand up and be proud of myself."

Thank you so much Marie-Noëlle Hébert for this important book. We need to do better by ourselves and each other so we can do better for our daughters and our sons.

There is this intense emotional attachment we have to our bodies that can tear us apart. This novel illustrates my own journey with my body and how others, including me, have sought out to destroy it.

I thought that the illustrations were unique and the words so poignant. I really liked the content all around.

I'm in my feelings.

This stories isn't afraid to go deep and dark. It's so raw and true. I think it's impossible not to relate to it.

The Art work in itself is exceptional. It plays with your perceptions going from very detailed illustrations (the processing probably implies photos) to very vague ones. The displays, the ways the characters are shown are very artistic and impactful. It perfectly convayed emotions from the most painful to joyful ones.

I recommend very very much.

Thank you NetGalley for letting me read this!

This is a very important graphic memoir. Points of view like this can help so many young people. When people share such personal struggles, it’s a giant sign to everyone else who struggles with the same things that they aren’t alone on their journey.

Raw and personal and beautiful.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy.

Unfortunately, I could not make it through this one. The art was all done in pencil, but the dark color didn't complement the story the way I thought it might. I really wanted to like this but I just did not.

“The secret to being beautiful - never try to look like a fat girl who thinks she’s thin. Cover up your body. It’s embarrassing. Use fashion tricks to hide your flaws. Forget about what you want and do what you’re told.

And if you’re fat, keep your mouth shut.”


My Body in Pieces is a graphic memoir Marie-Noelle Hébert that follows her relationship with her body from childhood to early adulthood. Hébert desperately wants to be what she considers “thin” and believes that weight loss would solve all of her problems - fitting in with her peers, getting a boyfriend, and silencing her dad’s comments about what she eats. As a teenager, Hébert starts a fitness regime that soon becomes obsessive, sending her into a spiral of self-destructive thinking. Thankfully, a friend advises Hébert to seek professional help, which begins a journey of self-acceptance and breaking the pressures of society’s impossible beauty standards.

I always feel conflicted when rating a memoir on a 5-star scale. Because of the personal nature of the content, how do you genuinely assign “value” to the experience of another person? With that being said, I did find the content of Hébert’s memoir incredibly relatable. I have struggled with weight, self-confidence, and body image for years and there was something comforting about reading about Hébert’s journey and knowing that I was not alone in my own. Disordered eating, self-hatred, and negative body image are all discussed in the pages of this graphic memoir with honesty and scope despite the short length of the book. I would have loved more context on her upbringing as well as education to really understand the expectations others had for the body of their daughter, friend, and peer.

Hébert's art is entirely drawn in pencil and impressive. She has a way of capturing emotions in the facial expressions of her subjects. I was in awe of the realism within the pages, especially when it was juxtaposed with blurred, fuzzy images that exemplified stress, depression, and trauma.

[CW: disordered eating, fatphobia, body image, thoughts of suicide and self-harm.]

Thank you to NetGalley and Groundwood Books for the opportunity to read and review this graphic memoir.

This graphic novel was a waste of time. The artwork was so dark I couldn't enjoy it. And it felt like a robot was telling the story. There was not emotion and every character felt flatter than a pancake. Would not read or recommend.

1 out of 5 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC of this graphic novel.

Triggering for those who have a history of body dysmorphia. But also beautiful and powerful. The art is unlike anything I've seen in other graphic novels. It's dark, messy, and deeply personal. You can feel the authors pain as she journeys from self hate to self love. I adored this.

This graphic novel, translated from French by Shelley Tanaka, tells the story of a young woman’s struggles with mental health, particularly her self-esteem and her relationship to food and eating. In both of these areas, she is kind of painfully relatable, but not in a feel-good kind of way. For me, it’s a little like poking at a bruise, particularly with the self-talk she engages in and her attitude toward existence(spoiler: it’s not healthy).

Luckily, there’s Ganache. Marie-Noelle’s cat, Ganache is a scene stealer whenever he shows up in a panel. The dimly lit, greyscale art is prevented from being unrelentingly dark by this cat and his magnificent whiskers. The art, by the way, varies in style. Sometimes it’s a little like novice charcoals, other times it looks like a charcoal copy of photographs. It fits the overall tone of the book, even lightening toward the end, when Marie-Noelle decides to love herself. Not a lot of how she reached this decision is shown, which is too bad, but perhaps it wasn’t something that would be easy to illustrate.

This is a book I would check out from the library. Perhaps several times. I don’t know if I would want to actually own it though.

I wish there were more graphic novels like this when I was growing up. You feel so inadequate in the world and think you're the only one going through those things. This author did a wonderful job describing the vicious cycle of insecurities and self doubt that go on in a teenage girl's head.

I was given this copy by Netgalley for a honest review.

📚My Body in Pieces by Marie-Noëlle Hérbert📚

📍”A deeply emotional graphic memoir of a young women’s struggles with self-esteem and body image issues.”

📍Such a short read (around 100 pages)

📍I have really mixed opinions on this.

📍First of all, this story is so meaningful and such an inspiring story. I really enjoyed the illustrations and the way this story went. I do think it had such an impactful story with such a likeable character. Throughout the story you start feeling really terrible for her. It’s such a realistic topic/issue that many struggle with. I do think the premise was great because people with those emotions need this inspiration. They need to know how much they matter, regardless of looks.

📍Following Marie-Noelle was such a great time! I really would love to know more about this author and her though process when she was writing this. The artwork was stunning and breathtaking. I really did enjoy this.

📍My problem with this story was that it felt too flat. I think the author had so much potential with this story and could’ve done so much more. I do think this is one that’s better reading in a physical format. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the way it was presented/structured. I do think it was too brief. I definitely think it could’ve been more than 100 pages. I do think adding more detail would’ve been great.

📍This was such a short and fun read. I really was intrigued from the very beginning. This author was so interesting and inspiring. I really did enjoy it overall. Although I will be giving it a three star, I would still recommend this.

📍TW: it does talk about fat shaming.

•Huge thank you to NetGalley, Groundwood Books, and Marie-Noëlle Hébert for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.•

The imagery was breathtakingly beautiful!! I do love the overall message about body image, and how words can deeply affect a person. I think I thought it would be today more in a storyline as opposed to snapshots. I still think it was well done, but I think I would have liked more of a story.

Rough and disjointed. The timeline isn't linear (or at least doesn't appear linear) and does not offer transitions between sections - creating this cobbled, unorganized feel. Maybe that was the point?

The topic is important - self-esteem and body positivity, but the jarring nature completely missed the mark for me. I think the story would have been better served in a more traditional format.

#MyBodyinPieces #NetGalley

*Thank you to Netgalley and Anansi Press for providing a free ARC in exchange for an honest review

My Body in Pieces will tear your heart open and stitch it back together again by the end.

This NA graphic memoir follows a young woman all the way from when she was just a child to in her early twenties. She struggles with her self-worth and body image and grows up with a deep resentment for herself and those around her since she believes she will never fit in.

This book was so deep and emotional. Whether you struggle with anxiety, eating disorders, and/or self-esteem, or not, this book will connect with you. You could feel the pain put into the words, and let’s not forget the absolutely beautiful drawings as well. I’ve never read a memoir in the form of a graphic novel, but it was breathtaking. From the words to the drawings, everything was constructed perfectly, to make a quick, yet deep read. Overall, this was amazing and heart-rending. I highly recommend you grab your copy on April first.

A beautifully heart-breaking memoir. This is a raw, deeply sad graphic novel.

Marie-Noelle hates her body. She thinks she’s fat and getting thinner is the only way to help her self-esteem, to help her relationships with others. The style and coloring of the graphics really match the emotion I feel when reading this novel and they are quite different than any graphics I’ve seen before. The timeline confuses me at times as it jumps around from her childhood to her twenties.

As she gets older, a friend encourages Marie-Noelle to seek out therapy. Finally, after all her struggles, she feels beautiful in her own skin. I love that this story demonstrates one example of the benefits of therapy as well as overcoming very deep, difficult issues.

“‘Fat’ is a word that I thought meant ugly. And what if I’d loved myself from the beginning?”

I didn't feel very connected to the characters or like I got a chance to connect to any of them as the story was told so quickly, with not a lot of details.

CW: mental health difficulties (especially eating disorders and anxiety), body shaming, bullying, self harm, suicidal ideation, death

This book showcases the struggles of a girl who just doesn't fit into the standard beauty standards that we grew up within the 90s - 2000. She shares these struggles in small snippets of interactions with the world around her growing up through illustrations and inner thoughts. While the title and book cover drew my interest, the pages did not capture me, despite going through a very similar young life. Some of the illustrations were very hard to make out. They were either a bit too dark or abstract, therefore making me become confused about what the illustrator wanted me to feel through the pages. The graphic novel also made me feel like needed a bit more context within the story to better connect with the author on a personal level. It was almost like I was an outsider coming into a movie halfway through (if that makes sense), and it was too difficult to find a deep connection with it. I was hoping to really enjoy this, but sadly, I did not. Thank you for the ARC!