I’d like to thank the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book through NetGalley.

Lighter Than My Shadow is a comic book that narrates the teenage and early adulthood years of the writer and illustrator Katie Green. It was emotional and haunting. I applaud her for having the courage to make this book happen. She gives us a full picture of her struggles with an eating disorder and her sexual assault.

The pictures are simple, but detailed and expressive! They clearly show that Green can express herself through painting and she manages to leave an impact on the reader.

I read an electronic version of this book which is 500+ pages long, so I am only assuming the physical copy will be enormous! The story is slow paced, but it did not bother me at all. I understand that the writer put so much effort into recalling her past traumas and recreating them into something beautiful and helpful for those that have gone through similar situations.

If you like memoirs, then definitely give this book a read! It is kind of dark to transfer to someone else's emotional darkness, but I definitely learned a thing or two about eating disorders and what is going on in these people's minds. It may be a personal story, but it is important to learn how it is possible to help anyone that is going through something as hard as this.

Unfortunately, I could not get this file to open on my e-reader. I am interested in picking this up at some point though.

The book is the graphic autobiography of the childhood and young adulthood of Katie, and her problem related to alimentary disorder. The protagonist is a creative girl, extremely picky about what to eat and when; the comparison with other school friends slowly enhances the issue, till getting to anorexia episodes.

The author shows with this book her life to the reader: her issues and how slowly she fought them, even with the negative influence of a guru who, bragging about helping her, sexually abused the girl.

An extremely touching and engaging book, graphically well structured and detailed.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me the copy necessary to write this review.

Where do I start? This book was drastically beyond what I expected. I didn't read the description very well at all. I just thought it was a light graphic novel that was going to be a bit weird because of the cover. Boy was I wrong. I was suckered punched by this book once I picked up the signs that were being screamed at me by the author. I was not prepared for this book. I started reading at work and almost had a panic attack in the lunchroom surrounded by coworkers. This book is powerful.

There are some scenes that even from the topic of the book (now that I know what it is) that were unexpected. I didn't expect sexual assault or a suicide attempt with pulls (which BTW is one of my big triggers. It can set off flashbacks and panic attacks even on good days). So be warned that this book holds nothing back, there is no pretty packaging to soften the blows. Read with caution if you are triggered by eating disorders, sexual assault, or suicide attempts. 

I LOVE physical manifestations of mental illness and emotions. This book had that done so perfectly. I was beside myself with happiness at that and terrified that everything was that pronounced for her. I have body issues (GDD or GID, if you are old school) so I thought I would be able to relate, but I just couldn't. The feelings were so intense and so overwhelming. It was like being in a constant state of dysphoria. I can only hope that the author is managing and has a support system to help her. I would be part of that system if ever needed. 

I can't say even one negative thing about this book. It was long, but I was hooked. I read while eating, I read while walking, I was not putting it down until I was done. This book is one of those books that will stick in my mind for years and be one that I pull out when people ask for top books. This book is that good. I read hundreds of books a year and this is by far one of the best books I have read this year or in my lifetime.

*This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review and is recommended for mature readers

In this graphic memoir, Katie Green takes a look back on her relationship with food and body image from early childhood through college as she battles with anorexia and binge eating.

I LOVE graphic memoirs when they are done right. The combined ability of art and the written word can impact you on a much deeper level than either one on its own. Lighter Than My Shadow is now among my favorites.

This book is not an easy read. Green is shamelessly honest in her depiction of the disorder and the toll it takes not only on the afflicted but on their friends and family. It's heartbreaking to see this young girl's self-esteem take hit after hit until her own mind circles the drain of all those negative thoughts. As dealing with depression is similar, I can empathize with her.

At times the narrative can get repetitive but if you remind yourself this is a person relapsing and not a fictional character, it's forgivable. There is always a forward momentum, though. I admire the author's courage and if you can read such things without getting triggered (SPOILER: I will have to insert a trigger warning for rape as well as the eating disorder), I highly suggest giving this book a try. 4.5 out of 5.

The publisher provided me with the opportunity to read this in exchange for providing feedback. (via NetGalley)

Interesting concept I feel really highlighted the authors struggle with her eating disorders and being a victim of abuse. It was raw and honest, covering a topic that some won't talk about. The accompanying art work matched the story perfectly and helped show what words couldn't explain.

I want to thank NetGalley and Diamond Book Distributors for providing me with this copy in exchange for an honest review

4.5/5 Stars

I went to this book without knowing anything about it and it has left me pleasantly impressed, the work put in here is so good. I just found out that it's a kind of autobiography, since the book tells the journey for which the author has had to cross and is even more meritorious and I think that Katie Green has been very brave in transmitting part of her life on the paper and letting all of us see it and alows us to live that part of her story together with her, is so inspirational


The art is exceptional, is simple, clear and conveys all feelings in a unique way , I believe that I'll never be able of putting myself in the place of someone who is or has experienced such pain and emptiness that comes with this disease, which is the food disorder, but in a way, this graphic book helps us to understand better what happens in the minds of the people who are going through this and the much deeper reasons for which this disease is generated. To put yourself in that place just for a moment is very painful, but also opens your eyes and is really moving


The way the graphics explain the whole thing is amazing and very shocking at the same time, it's really hard, it will hit you hard without any doubt, I had to stop in moments because it was that hard guys. I still recommend it a lot, I feel it's a unique opportunity to put yourself in the skin of a person who is going through an eating disorder. You can feel each of her emotions, her struggle and how she's dragged over and over by the disease, it's really heartbreaking, but bravery and strength are also present here, so I couldn't recommend it more, especially if you're going through something similar or someone close to you is going through something similar, this one could be inspiring and even help people.

With over 500 pages, this graphic novel packs a powerful punch. This memoir begins as Katie is a small child and she begins to have negative feelings about food. These feelings are just the beginning as Katie begins to experience some OCD behaviors that will carry over into her adult life.

While her peers were anxious to grow up, Katie didn’t want to. She wasn’t interested in fashion and boys; Katie’s main concern was to be the perfect student. I loved that she tried to get advice from her parents as she matured when she approached them to talk to them about her concerns. What upset me sometimes was the response her parents would give her, they seemed too extreme, either too carefree or too strict in their attitude towards her issues. Times change and it was now in Katie’s life that she began to consume large amounts of food and her views started to change. She started to be concerned about her body image and she became curious about boys, but she felt herself unworthy of their attention. As the bullying continues, Katie begins to use food as her coping mechanism. Her self-esteem suffers and her thoughts scared me. Just when I think that Katie is going to find healing, the novel takes off and Katie is out of control. She becomes a victim of sexual abuse which just adds more fire to the issues Katie is trying to control. Food becomes a bigger issue and I loved the illustrations that portrayed this portion of her life. I appreciated Katie’s honesty in this novel as I could feel the emotions she was experiencing in the writing and in the illustrations. I really enjoyed this graphic novel although the subject matter was a difficult one.

I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This graphic autobiography is outstanding! Katie Green is incredibly honest and real. The emotions in this book are raw and powerful.

Spanning her childhood to adulthood, we follow Katie through her struggles with perfection. This leads to her becoming anorexic. Her continuing struggles with eating disorders, body, dysmorphia, interpersonal relationships, and sexual and emotional abuse,

Her artwork portrays her inner landscape as well as the world around her.

This is not a light, quick read. I was surprised to see it was over 500 pages, but I was drawn in and read it in two sittings.

Definitely worth the time to read. And I look forward to rereading it again later.

A powerful and personal tale, told in words and pictures, this was a wonderful, and at times heartbreaking read. Illustrated by the author, this is the story of her struggle to overcome issues with food, and her quest for control and perfection. A picky eater since childhood, as adolescence hits the resulting changes in her body become something that she struggles against, and soon she develops full blown anorexia. Unfortunately this is just the beginning of what will be a years long struggle to develop a healthy relationship with food, exacerbated by abuse from a person she trusted to help her with the problem.
The book is simply, but effectively illustrated in pencil style drawings and a muted palette is used throughout, visibly reflecting the darkness of the struggle she was undergoing. This also makes even more effective the limited use of more vibrant colours such as purple and green, to accent particular parts of the story. Occasionally the pages and panels seem repetitive at times, but in fact this just emphasises the constant daily struggle she faced. I also found the use of dark, incoherent scribbles to represent the dark thoughts she was dealing with, particularly effective.
The story being told, while highly personal is something that many young girls will relate to, in some form or another, and this is a book that I would highly recommend to young adult readers. While it does tackle mature issues and themes, it does so in a responsible manner, and one that readers of that age should be mature enough to appreciate. I also thought it was good that there was some focus on the family dynamics surrounding the illness, and how it impacted on family life. While the message of the book is ultimately hopeful and positive, it is also realistic, and for this reason it is one of the best memoirs in graphic novel form that I have read.

Lighter Than My Shadow is a memoir graphic novel about Katie Green's struggle with eating disorder from a very early age. It starts off when she was around 5 years or so and goes on till she finishes college. It mainly focuses on how her behaviour changed because of the disorder (or rather, the disorder became the crutch used to justify her insecurities), how it affected her relationships with her parents, friends and romantically. It also focuses on sexual abuse and how that further made her feel not worthy and insufficient, which again led back to her eating disorder. I felt like the story was running in loops, where she sometimes feels better but soon reneges and goes back to binge eating and punishing herself, but then that's how most disorders and addictions are. The book was a good read but would have enjoyed a lot more if the length was decreased.

The artwork is in monochromatic colours, mainly grey and sepia. Most of the panels from when she was a child (and flashbacks) were in sepia and the adult ones in grey. The way she depicted her feeling during the disorder were very good, like when she imagines cutting off her tummy fat with a knife after binge eating (where she imagines she has tummy fat, when in fact she does not), the dark voices (shown like a squiggly mess of lines in black, dark and confusing) in her head speaking to her to act a certain way, her trying to push out/drown those thoughts.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. It took me quite a few days to get through it since I didn't find it engrossing enough to complete in one sitting. I would have liked it more if it were a little less lengthy.

Katie had an eating disorder. She starts the book from when she was a little kid which set off all kinds of warning bells for me. Sure, it's important to know that things can start as a kid. Things can happen when a child is young that push their way into a psyche and bad shit can happen to anyone at any age. But she says "she had a perfect childhood...". I feel like I can see all the people who work with EDs shaking their heads right now. She also says she didn't want to grow up. More nodding. She talks about being anorexic and restricting and then when she gets taken to a doctor the doctor only weighs her and tells her she's a little under weight and sets her up with a nutrition to set her straight. Dude. What the fuck. I can't even imagine a situation where that is the response. I'm going to let that go, though, because it just got worse from there.

Katie does get some help, and she goes from anorexia to secret binges and then purging by working off all the food she eats. Here comes a big spoiler so don't read any further if you don't want to be SPOILERED!!!


The part I have the most problem with in this whole book, which is saying a lot, is when Katie figures out that the holistic guy who has been her "therapist" for a few years took advantage of her sexually. Not just once, but the whole time she was seeing him, and she has blocked it out. All of a sudden it all clicks into place and she gets it. She tells her friends. She gets a real therapist. And everything starts to go back to normal and she gets very okay very quickly. I don't feel this is realistic at all. I know it's a book, she had to condense, but nothing else in here is condensed and all of a sudden to go from - hey! this is what happened! this is why I'm fucked up! - to hey! look ma! I'm all better! I'm gonna go back to school and do what I really want to do because I have figured it all out and everything is okay! I can't tell you how much frustration I had with this.

This is a graphic novel. There were pages that almost SCREAMED to me because I couldn't figure out how she made a page look exactly like a feeling. That was phenomenal. The rest of it I could do without. I'm not trying to judge the author or her life, and I hope that is clear here. It's just hard for me to know there are a lot of kids with EDs running around trying to look for every book and every trick they can get their hands on and seeing something make it look simplistic.

This an excellent graphic novel memoir in the vein of Craig Thompson's Blankets. It's a story of growing up, struggling, abuse, and finding a way to survive. The art is simple but perfect evokes Katie's inner life. The way it depicts her daily struggles even as she has to admit she is making progress is a very important and realistic depiction of mental illness. While they weren't major characters the friends and family in her orbit also felt realistic. As with many books about young people who are in pain, I feel this book is an important read for teens who may find some of their own troubles in it or just to build empathy and understanding. It's also important for parents or adults who work with children and teens to see all the minor moments and comment that add to Katie's problem and to help identify ways to help others in her situation. There are graphic depictions of abuse and the imagine violence Katie is doing to herself but I think older teens could handle them.

Katie's troubles with food began when she was a young child hiding toast in her bedroom and throwing food away. After experiencing bullying Katie's doubts about herself really take root, especially after she compares her body to others and thinks hers is out of proportion. She begins deliberately restricting her food intake, then becomes obsessed with nutrition and calorie counting. Her father takes her to see a doctor at 17 and in the doctor's 'wisdom' she suggests Katie eat ice cream. Surprise, surprise ... this is not the solution. I know! Shocking, huh?!

Finally Katie is taken to hospital where she's diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. Her parents withdraw her from school so she can be monitored at all times and she begins to see a psychologist and a dietician. Katie then uses the same perfectionism that got her into trouble in the first place as she begins to work towards recovery. Her intense need for control ensures she feels like she needs to do everything she attempts perfectly to make her feel good enough, but of course that doesn't help.

Katie is very honest about her struggle with food and about instances of sexual assault she later experiences. Her discussions with her therapist about her anorexia, binge eating and effects of sexual assault are difficult to read but so important. Those who have experienced any combination of these issues will see themselves in Katie's experience of healing and those who haven't experienced them will gain valuable insight into the thought processes that accompany such painful experiences. Katie's experience, while it certainly highlights how difficult recovery is, tells us that recovery is indeed possible.

Katie's illustrations in this graphic novel are fantastic. I loved how well the story came to life through the pictures alone. It was clear how all of the people were feeling in each panel and the depiction of Katie's thoughts and illness hovering over her head worked perfectly for the story. I applaud Katie for her strength and courage in not only telling her story in the first place but in sharing it with the reader.

I personally appreciated all of the "me, too" moments I felt while reading, as if Katie was speaking directly to my experience in specific sections. There was also a very significant lightbulb moment for me that I expect will help me immensely once I've had a chance to process the magnitude of the revelation I received. While it's not all about me (except when it is) I'd like to personally thank Katie if she ever comes across this review because her courage in telling her truth is causing a ripple effect in my life. Thank you, Katie! I'll be revisiting this book whenever I'm looking for wisdom, strength and understanding.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley (thank you so much to NetGalley and Diamond Book Distributors for the opportunity) in exchange for honest feedback.

#YA #memoir
Very sad autobiographical look at an eating disorder and the difficulty and slow circuitous route of recovery. The illustrations are excellent with immense depth.
I'm just a little concerned about who the target audience would be as I'd worry about putting it in just any teen girls hands given the incidence of imitation.

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.