I would first like to thank Netgalley and First Second Publishers for sending me the E-arc.

This graphic novel is raw emotions full of pain, self image issues, eating disorder, and family trauma. I would like to give a warning that of any of this triggers you I would advise not to read it. For me it was already difficult to read, as I have experience eating disorders and body image disorder.

All Val wants in her life is to be good, good enough for her mom. We see the verbal abuse that Val goes through as her mom constantly tells her to make sure to be thin, not eat too much, don't look like her friend, etc. With each word said to her, it was like I could feel it myself again, the need to eat less, look like the "thin happy girls", I had felt as well that I was never good enough. We learn though that this is all untrue, that to be happy means to be emotionally good to yourself, find what brings you joy in life, and not live for what others see in you.

Val's mom carries the behaviour she feels that will help her family the best as that is all she has been taught, and for Val it is about breaking this behaviour pattern.

Victoria writes this for all who need to hear that you are always good enough, and as well a tribute to the pain she suffered as well.

Thank you Victoria for writing a story I needed to hear, as it is still difficult for me to overcome.

*****Thank you NetGalley for the Arc*****

This was a short and personal story of a really life struggle of the author.I understood each character and why they are like this. I didn’t like Val’s mom, but I could relate to why she was being like this. Eating disorders exist world wide, but from personal experience I have seen how much our communities talk about foods/diet. It is truly heart-breaking and I hope they realize that it’s the kids around them that suffer through such traumas. I really enjoyed this one!

this book hits a little too close to home. younger me would've been crying tears. eat whatever you like, do whatever you feel like doing.

First of all I want to thank netgalley for providing me with this graphic novel.

tells us the story of Valerie who has always tried to be good at everything, to have good grades, to be an obedient and thin daughter to please her mother, nobody knows that to stay thin she makes herself vomit. She does all this to make her mother happy, who has told her all her life that she shouldn't eat certain things, that no one will love her if she gains weight, since those things have been said to her too.

the story is strong, since it deals with the death of a loved one, and food problems, but they are well handled, and with a conclusion that although it is not and they lived happily ever after, it is rather a we can improve, it will cost but it we will succeed if we ask the right people for help. He tells us about the importance of talking about things, of being able to express how one feels.
It took me a couple of hours to read this novel, and it's gratifying, it left me with a knot in my stomach but not in a bad way but to reflect on what I read.

I give it 5 stars out of 5

I feel like this is an accurate representation of eating disorder and I appreciate it for what it is. I enjoyed the soft style and colors of the illustration.
In the story, unfortunately there were some plot holes and some issues were shallowly explored. We never get to know why the mom was the way she was, where the “perfect thinness” come from. Also the secret love of her life…the conflict between her girl friend and the boy was poorly discovered and it felt like the story was over too early. Same with the mom.
There was too much happening in a short time: Paris trip, funeral, friend conflict; there was not enough space for all that and so it felt very shallow.
I think it ended too early too and it needed more pages to fully discover and resolve the problems.
Thank you for Netgalley and the publisher for the e-arc.

Thank you for letting me read this book. I really liked the artstyle and I am impressed in what a sensitive way the author managed to tackel such a delicate topic.

"Hungry Ghost" by Vitoria Ying is about Valerie navigating being "good" - the good student, the good daughter for her mother who pressures her in everything food related, the good sister, the good friend - but Valerie must discover if being "good" at everything is worth the cost of her happiness and mental health. The story takes you on the internal dialogue and pressures of Valerie's environment and the toll it takes on her emotional, mental and physical health. The story made me upset, sad but wanting to know if or how Valerie surpasses it. The color scheme of the art with the neutral white, grey and blacks having a pop of pastel blue and pinks really helped with setting the tone of the story and the conflicts this book touches on. I do want to say there is a TW for eating disorders and body dysmorphia. Overall, I would recommend this title to readers.

As someone who also struggled with eating and my own weight all my live, this book hit a spot. Even though I am on the other scale of the eating disorder scale, this book manages to talk abkout the problems many have. Family that puts pressure on you, maybe even unkowingly. Lingering jealousy that you can´t really understand. What I found the most important was the friendship in this book. The character has it´s flaws that I have myself, but it shows that you can work on them. It´s a really important book not only for people with an eating disorder but for their family and friends as well. 4,5 Stars

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC.

This is a beautiful and heart wrenching story about a young girl enduring emotional/mental abuse from her mother regarding her intake of food. This abuse reiterated the stigma that being fat equals being bad and unhealthy so our protagonist becomes bulimic.
The art is gorgeous and the story is beautiful. It’s very sad to see a young girl so obsessed with her body image that she needs to purge herself after putting food into her body. Every scene with her mother just put a knife in my heart and wrenched it bit by bit.
But there are happy parts and it ends on a very hopeful note. I absolutely adored her friend and I felt that she wasn’t just a lesson for our protagonist to learn from.
I did think that the death of the dad was a bit weird/drastic but I understand the point of it was to show how reliant her mother had become of her and how the protagonist needed to overcome this need to be the “good daughter”.
This story ties in so many different elements to eating disorders. How mental it is and we saw our protagonists life, how her mother was critiquing, her father was lovely but relied on her to carry out any wills he needed, this constant need to be good all contributed to this eating disorder.

Overall this story is so important for anyone especially young people to read. There isn’t a solution, there wasn’t an easy “how to guide” on how to overcome this. It’s just the knowing that your body is yours and to treat it with kindness and respect is all you can do. Forget societal norms, love yourself and that’s a good first start.
100% will be buying for my high school library.

Beautiful drawing and a great story. The art really showed and reflected the main character's emotions. Would recommend.

This is a beautifully-illustrated graphic novel following Valerie Chu, a teenage girl struggling with an eating disorder and trying to make sense of the mixed messaging on body image she receives from her family, her friends, and society at large. Overall I felt the story was sensitively written, although some of the later plot points felt a bit surface-level or not fully explored, particularly the conflict between Valerie and her friend in the latter half of the book. However, the warm and engaging art style smoothed over these small flaws for me and I enjoyed the book.

A poignant read, which highlights an unfortunately trivialized eating disorder, anorexia.

A very current story, which shows the small reflections that make people suffering from this disorder plunge ever deeper, but also the difficulty of emerging from these dangerous patterns.

In short, a book to discover and highlight to raise awareness on the subject!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

4 stars!

Spoilers ahead. I will not reveal anything big - most of the review vaguely alludes to plot, structure, and characters.

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Hungry Ghost is a touching look at a misunderstood disorder, in the context of a familial culture that many (fortunately) do not have to experience. I absolutely adored how this graphic novel touched on both the perpetuation and breaking of generational patterns of abuse and trauma, and did it in a subtle way. I loved the drawing style and the fact that the color palette was muted and limited for most of the narrative. I would have liked to see a bit more exploration of how the grieving process affected our main character - we see how everyone else is coping (or not), and I think that even a throwaway line about how she was too busy caring for her mother or bottling things up would have gone a long way in terms of characterization. But, overall, a great graphic novel that shows the struggle of living with an eating disorder and familial trauma, and how it affects relationships.

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Again, thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced
Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75

A rough, beautiful, heartbreaking read. If you suffer from an eating disorder, please be kind to yourself while reading this, but I think that everyone should read this book, including the afterword from the author.

This comic was hard to read, but also very important. It takes a look at eating disorders in a way that felt genuine and raw. The art was very beautiful and the colours worked really well for this.

I did feel that the ending/conclusion felt a bit rushed, and I would have liked it to have been more detailed as well.

The eating disorder is the main topic of this comic, and it's portrayed really well. It's easy to understand why and how it has developped, even if I don't personally have any experience with EDs (thankfully).
I also really appreciated how grief was portrayed in different ways, rather than just one way. The family dynamics felt very real and relatable.

I wish there was a bit more development for the other characters, so we had more background, but everyone else is very clearly a background figure for the main story about the ED. While Val does also says it made her selfish, I just wish the book itself had included a bit more.

All in all, I think this is a very good comic about EDs, and I think it's a very important subject that should be getting more attention. I'd recommend it to teens and anyone who deals with teens, be that parents or teachers.

This story is powerful. Val goes through so much over the course of the novel. I saw Jordan's plot twist coming just from how Val consistently underestimated how lovely her friend is. I actually like Jordan more than anyone else in the story! And I think that may be one of the points the author is making.

The art is beautiful and the story is, as stated above, powerful and uplifting.

Will purchase for my teen graphic novel collection.

Thank you NetGalley, First Second Books, and Victoria Ying for this eGalley.

This graphic novel deals unflinchingly with some of the uglier parts of an eating disorder - starvation, binging, purging and the toxic family dynamics that can allow the monster of EDNOS to thrive. In that, it's excellent fodder for conversation and growth with adolescents.

Where this book falls short is in character depth; while Val is a multidimensional human being, everyone else - from her best friend to her romantic interest to her mother to even her beloved father - serves as a unidimensional foil and motivator for her actions.

As an allegory and illustrative tale - it's well done. As a realistic example from which we can derive conversation about how to navigate towards a healthier dynamic with food and loved ones.... that's going to take some more leg work on the part of the coaching party.

I really wanted to like this graphic novel more than I did. What is here is very well done and does resonate, but I can't help feeling like it's missing something. Some of the characters feel a little underdeveloped (for example, it feels like there isn't quite enough to really show the reader why Val feels so devoted to her mother before the tragedy since it feels like all of their conversations are about food. I would've loved to see what their relationship is like outside of this context).

The art is lovely, but the cover had me expecting more fantastical imagery since the rest of the comic is otherwise quite grounded in reality. Overall, the comic is good, but with maybe another 100 pages and reworked imagery, it could have been great.

Maybe I'm just not ready to read books about eating disorders. Val's story felt very real, that's for sure. And I loved her best friend. But everything else made me frown or want to cry. The mom? Her character seemed to exist solely to hurt Val, no matter what the aunt said to try to defend her. The dad had a confusing purpose in the story and I think should have been left out completely.

I didn't enjoy this book, mainly because of the mom, but also because her healing journey was shown as being so simple. She realizes she has a problem and starts taking steps to get better, but that's right when the book cuts off. I think the story of this book should have been shifted around so there were fewer unnecessary side characters and more of a focus on her journey.

Valerie's mother has always made comments about her eating habits and it has become ingrained in her to be constantly aware of how many calories she consumes. This has led to her developing bulimia and hiding her dangerous habit from everyone she knows and loves. While she is on a school trip in Paris, a terrible event causes all of her relationships to crack and everything starts to split wide open.

The art is beautiful and the characters are complex and relatable. I loved how difficult situations in this book were handled.