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.

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 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.

📚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 the author for writing a story of what it is like to hate yourself, and your body. Using a scrapbook-like style, the author draws memories and thoughts for us that led to her finding love for herself. If you have struggled before with your body, especially as a younger person, this will probably resonate with you. All of the ugly thoughts I have had about myself were shown in brutal and honest truth, and I appreciate this story for taking the time to break those moments down.

I wish there had been a bit more of a section on how the author came to love herself, but overall this was an emotional and touching read. Her art is beautiful, quite realistic and in some instances, haunting.

CW: self-hatred, body dysmorphia, struggles with body image, fatphobia, dieting, bullying, suicide

Thank you to NetGalley and House of Anansi Press Inc. for the ARC.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to netgalley, the publisher, & the incredible author for giving me the opportunity to read this true work of art.
The writing paired with her art felt like the most gorgeous sunset was taken & bound into a book. I’m completely in love.
I’ve never in my life come across a book that made me feel seen. Her struggles as a “fat kid” mirrored mine so perfectly. I was sad reading it only because I experienced it, I knew how she felt, I look back and hate that I spent so much of my childhood and teen years obsessing over my weight when I should have just been living!! I want to hand this book to my younger self.
Okay but on to her drawings. Wow just wow. I’m in awe at the sheer talent.
Dear Marie Noelle, thank you for bringing this book, your story, and your art into the world.

This was more of a scrapbook of images that evoked sadness in me. Body image is such a struggle for many and this book will engage a conversation. The imagery was beautifully dark with emotion.


Thank you NetGalley for the arc

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an eARC of My Body in Pieces in exchange for an honest review.

My Body in Pieces is more of a collection of snapshots than a story. We follow Marie-Noelle, a young women that has been struggling with her weight and how she sees herself. The illustration is beautiful and as a plus size women myself I could relate to the character.

This book had all the potential to be really great for me. I am also plus-sized and have major insecurities about it. However, it missed the mark. It was quite jarring in numerous ways. The first being the art style. Some of the pictures were rendered in crazy, beautiful detail yet some were like a blurry collection of shapes. The two forms weren't cohesive. Second, was the way it jumped between subjects. I understand how background on her best friend and her father are relevant to her overall journey, but the way they were presented within the narrative was really stiff. It was hard to follow. Oh, okay, we're here now. Op, now we're over here. And no where for more than a few pages.

The picture of her parents felt inconsistent. Of course, I understand it is the nature of people to be inconsistent, but I wasn't sure what she wanted me to think of them or of their part in her life. In character terms, they weren't "fleshed out." Not that anyone was. But at least her best friend, Matilda had a clear motivation. It's difficult to criticize stories that are autobiographical, but ultimately you have to make the true events work in book form. Here, they did not.

The intention of the book also seemed to change throughout. At first it seemed to want to illustrate Marie's journey as an overweight girl into adulthood. Then it felt like a thank you letter to Matilda, then it felt a little self-help. It was supposed to be, here's what Marie learned, but it felt more like what the book wanted ME to have learned.

Ultimately, the intention was good but the execution lacked.

This brought me to tears. The way that this book so perfectly captured what it is like to grow up in a larger body, constantly being pressured to change. I grew up in a larger body before losing a lot of weight when I was a teenager. The part where she shops at sears, that was similar to my experience. Eating disorders and disordered eating is something often ignored in literature. This was a beautiful piece that I want to recommend to everyone. TW: Eating disorder, disordered eating, suicide, self harm

**Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for supplying me with an ARC of this graphic novel in exchange for an honest review.

My Body in Pieces is a beautiful graphic novel/memoir that gives us an inside look into the mind and experience of an individual suffering from self-esteem issues, anxiety, and depression. As someone who has struggled with these issues in the past and currently experiences a lot of anxiety, these words were something that I needed to read.

The format of this book being a graphic novel really added an extra layer of depth to the author's story and experiences. Being able to see images that correlate with their words made me feel like I was right there with them in their mind. I appreciate the rawness of the writing and images and that the author was so open with their experiences, even things that you could tell were more difficult for them to share.

I encourage everyone to pick up My Body in Pieces and give their time to it - it won't take you long to read, but the message and author's words will stick with you long after you finish.