TW: Eating Disorders, Bulimia, Body Dismorphia

This story follows Mindy a 27 year old woman struggling with an eating disorder. I'm so happy that this exists, but it feels like a missed opportunity to me.

I'll start with the positivies. The illustration is beautiful. I loved that how beautiful they made Mindy and her cat is one of my favorite drawings. It's just so cute! I am so happy that they are telling this story. A story that so many people can relate to. Representation and having a conversation about eating disorders is important. Especially in today's diet culture that constantly values thinness and "health". I am so thankful that they brought attention to the fact that eating disorder can happen in larger bodies, which is often overlooked.

But, I feel like it was they could have taken it further. It feels unresolved to me. I wish they would have explored her recovery more instead of ending it right as she is coming to a point of wanting to get help. The decision to seek help is an act of self love, but I felt like the overall idea of " love yourself" wasn't present. It focused more on the self realization of struggling and wanting to make a change which is an act of love but I felt they could have taken it further, portraying the pain of body acceptance and ups and downs of recovery. I want more for Mindy, I want to go on this journey with Mindy as she truly does explore self acceptance and love.

**I received this book from netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Unfortunately this book was archived before I had a chance to read it. I would really like to read this comic one day.

A different and refreshing take on ED culture!!! I enjoyed the strong female friendships as well as how parental pressures were addressed as well.

This graphic novel about a young woman struggling with body image issues is intimate, honest and moving. Plus the art is cool. . Will be purchasing this one for our collection!

This was a great graphic novel and very unique! I enjoy graphic novels that are more about real life situations and problems rather than fantasy.

Mindy has low self-esteem and a problem with stress eating. Stuck in a destructive binge/purge cycle, she happens upon some magic chocolate that transports her into the past to relive the sources and triggers to her lack of confidence, bulimia, and her unhealthy relationship with her body. As she deals with her traumas, Mindy slowly unlearns her destructive behaviors.

I love the art and the color palette in this book. Very soothing and stylized to make it unique. Mindy is a good character and watching her deal with her friends and family as she finally makes her feelings known and comes to terms with them is a sweet story. I like that her parents weren't super abusive; it more like those microaggressions that pile up and hit harder because they're coming from people you love. Her father was critical and her mom was overindulging but they weren't beating her or anything (thank goodness). It shows how such abuses don't have to be over the top evil to have a lasting impact on a person's life. I thought the use of the chocolate was cute! Not a bad read. 4.7 out of 5.

Body dysmorphia is such a real problem for so many people, so I wanted to love this book. I appreciated that the main character was in her 20s, as so many stories on body dysmorphia seem to forget that it's not a problem that just goes away once a person is no longer a teen. Unfortunately, like many other reviews, it just felt a little shallow. It's not the worst book I've ever read, but it just didn't feel completely genuine and I'm afraid it would be more of a trigger than a help for people.

Mindy is a young woman too lost in a sea of body dysmorphia and self-loathing to see her own good qualities. A seemingly magical chocolate bar gives her insights into her past and the events in her life that shaped her view of herself and how she interacts with others. Mindy's interactions with her parents, friends, and potential love interests felt familiar enough to be rooted in real life, and served as a good reminder of how insidious small comments about one's body can be to someone who already has a poor opinion of their physical form.

The art style was interesting and fun, giving what could have been a truly dark story a bright backdrop that added to the hopeful tone of Mindy's story.

I would recommend this title to anyone looking for an easy read that packs an emotional punch and ends on a hopeful note.

It was an interesting look into eating disorders but in the end it felt shallow. The main character revisits scenes from her past that were relevant to how her perception of her body changed through the years, showing parts of ver childhood and teenage years. Although It was a careful psychological portrayal it lacked a convincing ending.

I really loved the illustrations in this graphic novel! I thought they had so much character and did a great job setting the mood of this story. As for the plot, I understand that there is a really important conversation happening about eating disorders, self image and self love, but to me I didn't feel like it really landed. I don't think the points landed with as much impact and context as there could have been.

Overall, it wasn't unenjoyable and I definitely like what the author has to say but I don't know if it was the right book for me.

'Eat, and Love Yourself' by Sweeney Boo is a story about eating disorders, body acceptance, and a young woman on that journey.

Mindy goes out for food one night and finds an odd candy bar called 'Eat, and Love Yourself.' As she nibbles on it, she takes a journey back in time. She sees how her image of herself was formed. The secret binging and purging. How her parents said things that made her feel worse about herself. She sees how her view of herself has kept her from finding happiness.

I've read a few graphic novels like this. I like to hope they can help someone. I can't believe someone in this situation would need a candy bar to revisit their painful past. The art is rather nice, even Mindy's massively over-sized eyeglasses.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from BOOM! Studios and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

As a big fan of BOOM! comics and graphic novels, this one was one of my favourites because body issues and self-image are something I have personally dealt with for most of my life, as many readers surely have. The main protagonist Mindy is stuck in a cycle of emotional eating and is generally unhappy. Throughout the novel, she discovers how other people have influenced her current state and realises it is not her fault. I think it wrapped up a bit too quickly, as there were some storylines I wish we could've spent more time on, but I loved Mindy as a character and the story overall.

Eat, and Love Yourself is a graphic novel following Mindy, who has an eating disorder. One day she buys a chocolate and every time she takes a bite she gets sent back in time to confront her memories from when she was younger.

This graphic novel with beautiful art carries a very heavy theme. I personally cannot relate to the eating disorder aspect of the story, but I hope people who is suffering from it can find solace and hope in the story. Also, people who are not familiar with eating disorders can learn more. It also tackles mental health and finding it in yourself to love yourself. I found the story very sad, but also full of hope. I wish we got more in the end, so hopefully it will be more volumes in the future. When Mindy finally got to a point to look at things in a different way, the story ends. Overall important, heartful and very real. 4/5 stars.

Loved the graphic novel. I will be forwarding the info to our teen librarian for purchase. I think this an I.portsnt topic for youth to read about, and i can see them loving the illustrations.

We follow Mindy, right away we enter her world and learn how people treat her and talk to her about her weight. She buys a chocolate bar called “Eat and Love Yourself”. But with each bite, she gets a flashback of a moment of her past. Throughout these pages, we see her past and present days. Throughout these flashbacks he beings to learn to love herself, to stand up for her self. The candy bar being magic was something I was surprised by, I wasn't sure if it would come across cheesy, but it didn't. She has a pet cat, Jabba, who is over the moon cute!
I love the style of art. I like the color choice and how powerful it is.
Overall, this book moved me because it shines like on Mindy and her body in a positive light and did have her change herself for her to love herself.
Warning if you are sensitive to disordered eating and/or purging.

i think the author tried to give some good and uplifting message but it kind of failed at the end. for any book that has potential triggers, you should (please !!!) be extra careful with your writing!

Mindy is in her mid-twenties with a poor self-image and an eating disorder. She discovers an artisan chocolate bar that allows her to revisit her childhood whenever she takes a bite. As she takes a new look at her past, she begins to see her issues and how they have affected her. I didn't feel like the story had enough of a resolution to it. The art is cartoony with some swagger to it and nice bright colors.

Nope. This one didn't work for me.

Eat, and Love Yourself is a graphic novel about a 27-year-old woman named Mindy, who has struggled with self-esteem and disordered eating for most of her life. One day she discovers a candy bar that professes to teach the person who eats it to love themself. Each bite transports Mindy back to a moment from her past-- usually traumatic moments featuring fat-shaming, restrictive eating, and/or binge eating. All the while in her present-day life, she continues to exhibit these same unhealthy behaviors, fight with her fat-shaming best friend, and remain oblivious to romantic overtures from a myriad of boys.

I think that Mindy's story might be a very realistic of eating disorder and body dysmorphia, though I can't speak to that from personal experience. What it isn't, is fat-positive. There's hardly any character growth over the course of the story, and no evidence that Mindy has learned to "love herself" by the end, other than a one-off comment that feels unsatisfying without any textual evidence to back it up. Mindy doesn't do anything to change her behaviors, thoughts/beliefs about size, or her loved ones' toxic comments about weight. Her "breakthrough" occurs when her parents tell her that they love her and that she's beautiful "inside and out," and when her old high school boyfriend tells her that he loved her no matter her size. Her parents' words are completely empty in the face of all the triggering and fat-phobic things they've said throughout the rest of the story, and the ex-boyfriend is sweet but seems to indicate that Mindy only sees herself as worthy of love when someone else sees her that way... which isn't self-love.

In my opinion, this book would have been better if it hadn't featured a fat MC. Firstly, the character design isn't very consistent-- Mindy looks bigger or smaller or has different body proportions from panel to panel. If done deliberately, this might have been a cool way to show body dysmorphia through the eyes of the character, but I don't think it was. I'm pretty tired of fatness being portrayed by thin people as tragic and the result of binge eating. Also, my ace fat self is way over the trope of the fat-but-still-beautiful character who ~doesn't even notice all the thin, conventionally attractive boys that are super into her and ~if only she'd open up her eyes and see that she really is worthy of love, because some other people find her attractive!! *gag*

Either Eat, and Love Yourself fails in its intended premise, or the premise is completely misrepresented by the synopsis provided. This may be an accurate portrayal of eating disorders, but it is NOT fat-positive nor does it feature a character who learns to love herself. This isn't an uplifting tale, and actually left me feeling quite morose and even angry. The artwork is really beautiful, though.

TW: internal and external fatphobia and fat-shaming, body dysmorphia, disordered eating (including restricting, bingeing, and purging)

I had a hard time with this comic. As someone who had an eating disorder and has had friends with eating disorders I thought that this book would be a good and uplifting read about coming to love yourself. I also happen to be in the mental health field currently and found a lot of problems with the messages of the book. The message of the book seems to be that food is bad. This is inherently problematic for a book about eating disorders. You see the main character restrict, binge, and purge and the end message seems to be that it's the food's fault when she binges. That it only makes her happy for a moment and she just shouldn't eat. This is a terrible message for someone who is already restricting some of the time. Overall, I think the intention of this book was to empower but the execution was very problematic (see why under spoiler).

*SPOILER*
So the main character eats a magical candy bar that makes her relive all her worst moments growing up about people calling her fat or commenting about her weight, food consumption, and type of food. You can see in her life that she is unhappy and uncomfortable. She has low self-esteem and is not taking care of herself. The book seems to indicate that getting advances from men is somehow very important (I don't like this message although I understand this is true for some). So even though she is getting numbers from interested men, she doesn't believe they actually like her because she's fat. So she visits her family and has an outburst about how she's a disappointment and how she knows she's horrible for being fat. Then her family assures her she's beautiful inside and out and they never meant any harm. Then she runs into an old crush and he tells her she's beautiful and always has been and he likes her just the way she is. Only after these two events does she think, hmmm yeah I should learn to like myself. I don't like that this happens after other people's validation and her relationship with food is not addressed at all.

Hello Again!


This has been a busy week and lately, every day has felt like five but something that has helped has been great books and video games. I love being able to escape to other places or just read about other situations for a bit. I also love picking up projects (which tends to help keep my mind off other things). My most recent project has been working on small decor touches around my townhouse and finding space for everything (like if something does not have a space do I need it even? It's the big question I have been asking lately). In between those things I stumbled upon a graphic novel on Netgalley that looked so interesting I couldn't not request it and after waiting (luckily it was short wait) I got approved for the E-ARC so naturally, I stopped my little cleaning project and dove into this graphic novel (and I 100% did not regret it).


SPOILERS AHEAD


Mindy does not have the perfect life or the perfect body. She lives with her cat in an apartment, does not attend college (despite what her parents may or may not want), and works at a local cafe. Mindy however, is on the quest for the perfect body she buys all the magazines that talk about diets and trends as well as buying low-fat diet products at the store. But one night when Mindy is hungry she heads to the local market for a snack, there she picks up a chocolate bar called "Eat, and Love Yourself," Mindy buys the candy more out of curiosity than anything. But she soon learns that with every tiny square of the chocolate bar she eats she will be transported back to a moment in her past and not just any moment a moment that has somehow been influential to how she sees herself.


I can not gush about this graphic novel enough! This was the perfect graphic novel, honestly just what I needed when I needed it. I even ordered my own copy to have because I loved it so much. I wanted to be able to read Mindy's story over and over and look at the amazing artwork. This story touched on so many things that were relatable and I think that is something that made me love this so much. I highly recommend picking this up and giving it a try. Crossing my fingers that someday I get to read more about Mindy.


Rating: 5 stars on Goodreads (but I really feel like it deserves many more).





***Thank you so much to the publisher for the ARC copy on Netgalley