Lighter Than My Shadow is a difficult book to read and it should be, it deals with incredibly dark material. Katie’s struggles are unpleasant (to put it lightly) enough to turn a lot of readers away, but the book delivers a powerful message about recovery and mindfulness that makes it worth facing this young woman’s painful history. Green reflects upon the many events in her life; some huge, some small, which all combine to become something powerful and completely out of control. Green weaves her experiences together with lovely storytelling connectivity, showing readers how tiny things from the past can grow. There is also a lot of focus on the illusion of control in one’s life and the importance of mindfulness to stop the darkness. Lighter Than My Shadow is a memoir, but it often felt like a novel. I kept expecting to learn more about the other characters and how they were dealing with Katie’s downward spiral, but this exploration is completely absent and the book is focused entirely on Katie. I was left wondering more about her friends and family, especially her sister. My greatest qualm was the difficulty telling the characters apart, I often had to double check dialogue and previous panels to follow the characters and conversations.

I’m not sure if Lighter Than My Shadow would help a person suffering from an eating disorder, obsessive behavior, or other mental conditions, but it would be a powerful book to help family and friends to understand the complexity and pain of the sufferer.

I hope Green continues to make graphic novels, I’d love to read more of her work. She has a strong ability to seamlessly weave story elements together to create deep, connected themes. In addition, her ability to evoke intense emotion in her illustrations was often shocking and unnerving. She’s a powerful storyteller and artist.

After my friend Melissa told us how much she enjoyed this graphic novel during our book club, I couldn't resist getting a copy when I was offered one!

I decided to pick LIGHTER THAN MY SHADOW up after getting home from work, started reading and didn't stop until I'd finished it. The topic is definitely heavy as the book deals mostly with Katie's struggles with anorexia and mental health. It made me gasp and tear up more than once, but no matter how hard it was to face, it is such a hard book to put down. I was desperate to see what would happen next, and I wanted to try to understand what Katie was going through as much as I could!

Katie Green's artwork is wonderful. It balanced the story perfectly, and I could feel the emotion through every single drawing and every page. I'm blown away by this entire book! The fact that it's so personal makes me even more impressed. I don't even know Katie, other than having read her book, and I'm undeniably proud of her. LIGHTER THAN MY SHADOW is an absolute work of art. The story is raw, and incredibly powerful! It'll pull you right in, and the artwork complements it perfectly!

If you're a fan of heavier graphic novels that tackle personal subjects, I think you'll find LIGHTER THAN MY SHADOW just as remarkable as I did! And I also think that you'll be impressed by this book even if you're not big on graphic novels, but you like any sort of memoir dealing with mental health. All in all, I thought LIGHTER THAN MY SHADOW was absolutely amazing! If you've ever dealt with mental health or have simply wanted to understand it better, you need to read this book!

There is some pretty rough subject matter in this book. It details one woman's struggle with an eating disorder and sexual assault. I think the book does a wonderful job portraying these issues and shows why it can be so difficult for people that suffer from them to overcome them. While I don't imagine I would ever have to deal with these sorts of problems, I found myself identifying with her at some points.

I loved the art. The use of the "shadow" lingering around her pretty much non-stop was a great visual indicator of what was going on in her mind. It emphasized the struggle and horror of these events. Some of the images can be repetitive at times, which really serves to show how pervasive these type of issues can be in someone's life.

This wasn't an easy book to read, but when I gave it my full attention it move quickly. I have a lot of respect for the creator for putting this out there.

Lighter Than My Shadow is Katie Green’s memoir on her journey with eating disorders, PTSD, body image, sexual and emotion abuse so please if you’re considering picking this up because of its positive reviews do also look after yourself.

The subject matter is what drew me to this graphic novel and I figured like other it would be a quick read. However this is possible the longest graphic novel I’ve read at 509 pages long.

This wasn’t off putting though. In fact I’m really happy with its length and i fits perfectly and gives Katie Green enough pages to fully explore her story with some very interesting and imaginative compositions for her illustrations.

As mentioned Green’s illustrations are wonderful. They’re not the usual type that I pick up graphic novels for but they fit the subject matter and she does incredibly well on illustrating emotions through visual representations.

Even though this novel covers many tough subjects I do think it handles them well.

It is her journey. Its personal. Not a “how to deal with” kind of book. But one I’m sure many readers can relate too.

I will 100% be buying a physical copy soon as there was one page that really stood out to me when she was with her final therapist who actually helped and I’d like to pin that on my wall.

Wow wow wow! This book is so impressive. It's already really brave if someone shares such a story with 1 person, but to make a whole graphic novel about it? You have to be really brave to do that.

A heart-wrenching graphic memoir about Katie's eating disorder and her lifelong struggles. This book will eat you up and spit you out.
I highly recommend for ages 16 & up
5 Stars

I cried reading this. I've lived this. It felt like someone had finally given voice to what I couldn't. The illustrations and narration perfectly capture the feelings and thoughts that plague you when you're living it. If you've ever felt not good enough, struggled with acceptance, or wanted someone to understand how it felt to be you, this book is a must.

I love how the eating disorder is portrayed in this heartbreaking graphic novel.

That is the extent of my review. All the other words I have written fail to do this book justice. Pick it up and read it for yourself. You won't regret it.

While the subject matter of Lighter than my Shadow is harrowing, ultimately you’re uplifted by the journey taken by the protagonist. An inspirational tale, beautifully drawn and told.

“Lighter than my Shadow” by Katie Green is a graphic novel about her battle with anorexia as a child and into adulthood. She is very frank about her experiences. There are some events that could be triggering to some people – suicide and sexual assault, for example. The topic is an extremely difficult one but Green handles it with delicacy and honesty and I would not feel uncomfortable giving this to my 14-year-old daughter to read. The artwork is fairly simplistic, but seems to fit the book as a whole. The grey and sepia tones help to convey the character’s feelings of sadness and depression.

This is not a “fun read” but it could be a very important one. You definitely will not forget this book soon.

One minor thought – this is quite a long book. I read an e-version but I would imagine that a hard copy would be quite large and heavy.

I received a free e-copy from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

Sometimes a book, be it a novel or comic, can take you places you didn’t expect and truly blow your mind. The honesty, pain and beauty of this book did just that. It looks wonderful, and tells a story of both hope and hopelessness, and does so in a poetically heartbreaking manner. A true unmissable graphic work, this should be on lists of seminal titles from now on. Wow.

This book is heart breakingly beautiful. The narrator's struggle with her body and the impact it has on her everyday routine packs a tight punch in your gut all throughout. Read it. Experience it. Feel. it.

I thought that the symbolism within the drawings was well done. It was interesting to see how the author was able to include the Katie's issue by drawing scribbles of varying degrees. I also thought that the use of pages looking like they were ripped wherein she showed herself in the present talking about the past were creative and interesting. I believe that these drawing will help people to be able to understand eating disorders in a very abstract way.
It is a difficult novel to read because it is one thing to read something that deals with a character with an eating disorder and another to see the drawings of a character going through it. There are times when the drawings show her emaciated body and there is some nudity as well. It is important to be aware of your own triggers before beginning to read this graphic novel because it is not a light read at all. I'm not sure that I completely understood the progression the story. It seemed to jump around at times and I had to reorient myself to where the author went. Overall, it had a fairly good flow to it and the author leaves the ending open.

I understand that this is a very important subject but I can't help feeling that this was too long. And way too repetetive. And grey.

This is a very personal journey about a young woman's eating disorder and recovery process. I think its artwork was very strong in conveying what was going on mentally throughout the story. However, I've read memoirs about eating disorders in the past, and this did not exactly offer anything new. It was still well written, though. I'm not a huge fan of the art style (just my personal preference), but I did appreciate the creativity. While it is a graphic novel, it felt very long. I think it could have been trimmed a little to eliminate some of the repetitiveness. That said, I also felt like nothing else was fleshed out. There were big time jumps, and I never felt like we really got to learn about her family, friends, school, etc., which made it all feel a little one-dimensional.

My library has purchased 4 copies of this book. I'd recommend this title through Readers’ Advisory and book clubs based on the targeted audience.

This is not a memoir of eating disorders. This is a memoir of a person, one who HAS an eating disorder. It's a fine distinction but an important one. THe focus is on Green. Her history. The things that may have contributed to her disorder or prevented her from true recovery. This is a story of pain, judgement, and struggle. It's not an easy read. You'll cringe. But it's open and honest and that has value.

Such a insight for us to understand people who are suffering from eating disorders. Time for us to understand there's much more to that just trying to be gorgeous al losing control is a matter if wanting to have control of things and putting too much pressure onyou. Relatable and eye- opening

A really strong emotional journey through life with an eating disorder

This book shows just how easy it can be to hide that something is wrong, and that quite often people do need to trust their instincts.
I think it really gets into what it is like to experience Katie's feelings and what she's going through as you read. The drawings really put you inside her head and help you understand her emotions throughout her journey.