An honest and inspiring story of the true struggle of eating disorder and battle to overcome it. This book is a powerful and touching story of the honest struggle and what the author had to do to overcome to move on with her life and be able to live for the future. I believe that people should definitely read this book and learn the truly honest story of the what an eating disorder can do to the body and the mind and what it takes to truly overcome the constant battle of the thoughts that go through your head. I will definitely be reading more from this author.

This book is 500 pages long. This book is raw. This book bares all about the authors struggle with her eating disorder, and how hard it was to overcome it.

She tries, and wins, and fails, and tries again. It is heart breaking when she binges and blames herself, and can't figure out when to eat, and starves herself, because that is the only way she is in control of her life. It is all laid bare, and 500 pages of it.

It would seem that that would be excessive, but it works. It would seem that having her try and fail would be disheartening, and it is, but that's is life, things do not get wrapped in a tidy bow the first time you go to a therapist.

Society, peer pressure, expectations of your parents, and teachers all helped to push Katie over the edge, so much so that at one point the said she was going to die if she did not learn to eat.

Sad book, hard book to read, but well worth it.

That is how it is writing about issues that no one wants to talk about.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

Both beautiful and powerful, this graphic novel tells the true story of Katie who throughout the book struggles with different psychological disorders as she grows from a child to a woman.
This memoir tackles numerous subject matters like eating disorders, OCD, PTSD, anxiety, abuse or bullying….
The artwork is simple in such a beautiful and powerful way, it was perfect.

All in all, a strong, compelling, beautiful and powerful book; that is simply unmissable.

This is a great YA graphic novel about self image and self acceptance.

**Thanks to NetGalley for providing a complimentary copy of LIGHTER THAN MY SHADOW in exchange for my honest review**

GRADE: C-
2.5 STARS

Katie Green's graphic memoir tells the story of her eventual recovery from eating disorders and sexual assault.

The strongest part of LIGHTER THAN MY SHADOW was the use of metaphor in the drawing. The illustrations of people were also the weakest component in that many the characters were almost indistinguishable from each other.

I was confused in the beginning of the story as to Katie's age, she could have been three or thirteen. LIGHTER THAN MY MY SHADOW often repeated scenarios and while eating disorders are composed of repetitive behaviors, Green depicted them in an unoriginal manner. While graphic novels should be strong examples of showing vs telling, towards the end of the story Green used information dumps to write "this happened, this happened then this happened".

I wanted to empathize with and like Katie, but I had difficulty connecting to the character in the way the story unfolded. Green certainly has drawing talent. Perhaps a less personal story might have more perspective.