Book 097 of 300 ~ 2024

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Certain elements of this graphic novel cut too close to home.

When I was a teen, definitely there was imposter syndrome.

I am glad that I have come to accept myself in all ways and found someone who loves me for what and who I am.

I still dont understand why people think they can say what they want about how people look?? Isn't it more important that the person is healthy?

Pfft.. I am sure many others have had body image issues and I think this is a good graphic novel to pick up.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

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Adult comic focusing on a woman's journey to self-acceptance, what with media pressure in her teens to be a certain svelteness and so on. What hurt it was that it wasn't exactly pleasurable to read – the narrative can be in its usual pride of place, but then the dialogue interrupts that, and arrowed captions and comedic beats disturb the flow of that too. Visually, colouring is really weird – just blocks of green above many scenes set at home, a bright red brick across half a paragraph about something or other, as if the editor had flagged it up for correction. Perhaps that was the point – that all the messages this woman's mind was receiving were in error – but it really pulls focus from both the message and the character when you're wondering why floating panels of colour are just dumped on things at random. If this had been the first book on this topic to come my way I may have stuck with it, but it was nothing like original enough either.

A fascinating memoir into the author’s challenges with her body image and her journey to accept herself as she is.

She looks back on her struggles with dieting and the image she had of her own femininity, and how she tried to reach the goal of perfection. It is an interesting novel. Body image is not an issue I have thought much about and so it was interesting to see the way in which the author’s question about body image could be so destructive of her.

I don’t think the subject matter was one that truly engaged me, but the colours, artwork And pace of the story were captivating.

Copy provided by Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

In the past year, I have found a new love of reading and its graphic novels. I feel like I have unlocked a whole new world. When I read the cover and saw illustration, I was hooked. I am 30 years old and I felt this was perfect for my age. I sometimes find it hard to find graphic novels that are targeted to the adult audience but this was perfect. I do feel that someone who is a teen would also enjoy this book as well. The art work was perfect and the author is so easy to love.

And here we have the one line at the end that unraveled everything..

"I subscribe to the concept of "Heath At Any Size" which posits that any body size can be healthy."

This is so completely untrue and actually very dangerous. Being morbidly obese, for example, is not and cannot ever be healthy. There's a huge difference between accepting and being happy with one's body, and saying a clearly unhealthy body is healthy.

____________________________________________

These are my notes while VERY happily reading this book before that one sentence.

•There were graphic t-shirts that changed colour in the sun!?
"My jacket string tassel looks like a party girl" 😂
•The drastic change in colourful diary covers from 2005 eventually leading to black makes me sad ☹️
***What a glorious book - straight to my favourites it gooooes!***
⚪ An example of beauty "Tan skin (but in our racist society, you should ideally still be white-passing)" say it loud, girl!
Jim Carrey is Canadian 🙃
Pretty colours 🎨
•I wish I could draw
♀️Skirt length rules: Too short (slutty) Too long (prudish)
Agoraphobia 🩵🩵

This genre of graphic novel is probably my favorite and I find myself drawn to it time and time again. Even with my bias towards to genre, it's not always done well. Charmingly so, Full of Myself is one that IS done well. It's in the same vein as The Times I Knew I Was Gay by Eleanor Crewes - a look back through the years of a girl trying to figure herself out and accept herself. This will definitely ring the nostalgia bell for millennial readers as well. The strengths of storytelling were tucked into the drawings moreso than in the written words. I found myself lingering on pages just looking at all the little details, especially in the outfits section. I don't know that the story will stick with me as far as me wanting to reread it, but I think it's one that I enjoyed enough to pass on to a friend to reminisce about the 90s and 2000s and what it was like growing up as a girl into a woman during those times.

This was extremely relatable. Through words and amazing artwork, the author expresses the thoughts and experience most women had growing up that we internalized without even thinking about it. She encapsulates the fears and self-doubts in our teens and twenties as we work to find our place in the world around us and learn what it means to be a modern woman, as well as the self-consciousness and wanting to fit in and stand out at the same time and the insecurity that is only exacerbated by social media. It's a nostalgic journey with a lot of wit and self-reflection.

As someone who deliberately tried to not care too much about the "stuff girls cared about," growing up, from cool clothes to makeup and such, and who once shot back at my mother trying to scaremonger me that I might end up alone if I didn't care about myself that it would suit me just fine.... I still find this illustrated memoir all too relatable. There's just too much stuff any girl in America takes in growing up, and for me it's my shame of gaining weight and my own occasional mild envy of girls who got catcalled even though I most certainly did not want that kind of attention because that it is still often seen as a "marker" of beauty, of validation.

Siobhan is raw and unflinching in her prose and pictures. I felt deeply for Siobhan dealing with the misogyny from men and women at a way too young age, and for her personal struggles with body image and feeling desirable.

As someone who had some disordered eating myself growing up , I could sympathized with Sio's eating disorder quite readily. I also emphasize with Siobhan once getting asked when the baby was due. I had that happen to me once, it was not fun, and almost worst was the way the event was laughed at when I retold it. I also dreamed of an artsy college in New York as a teen, unrealistic for me though it was.

I also like the author's occasional but important acknowledgements that she had a white, cis, heterosexual upbringing, as this are all important to keep in mind.

Intersectionality does not mean these feminine experiences are "less valid" for being "less diverse" merely that it's important to keep in mind how Siobhan's childhood might have been impacted by those labels and was not.

I think in an age where you hear about things like "Sephora girls" where preteens are trying to buy cosmetics that they either don't need or that will be actively damaging to their skin, that it's important to have conversations about how body image impacts a girl's well being.

This is an entertaining graphic novel about body positivity and self-portrayal. It's an interesting and colorful graphic novel.

This was the most relatable Graphic Novel I have ever read.

Growing up in the 2000s as a woman just fucked up the body image of an entire generation. So I guess mostly every millenial woman (and of course others as well) will find theirselves in this book to an extend. I really enjoyed following along on this personal journey and it was a nice reminder that we are not alone with our issues and also that issues can be overcome.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me this eArc in exchange for an honest review.

This was so good. It was interesting to see the author's journey, particularly in a graphic novel format. I've never really read books like this before, but this one makes me want to!

I found a lot of this book very relatable and it sparked a lot of memories, good and bad, of growing up in a similar time and with similar experiences (albeit in the UK for me). I think the author does a good job of saying out loud the things that many of us grew up thinking, but wouldn't let anyone else know. However, I also found that several sections were somewhat repetitive and drawn out for no reason. Honestly, I think I would have enjoyed the book more if it had been 50-100 pages shorter, with events described in a more concise way. I also found some sections just a tad too "buzzwordy" for my liking. Nevertheless, I'd still give it 3 stars for the nostalgia and for the author's courage for speaking openly about tough issues like eating disorders, body dysmorphia, mental illness, toxic relationships, and so on.

I received a free copy of this eBook from the publisher, Andrews McMeel Publishing, for review purposes. Full of Myself was released on 2nd April 2024.

Some of the messages Gallagher got growing up: Thin is better. Conformity is better. Your body is not right. You are not right.

In "Full of Myself", Gallagher talks about growing up uncomfortable in her body—or, more to the point, being made to feel uncomfortable in her body—and what it meant to be a young woman in an image-driven society that both sexualizes and shames girls. The pop culture references will probably land best with millennials (why hello there), but I love the "years in fashion" pages—they'll feel retro to a younger crowd, but millennials, take note, the closet of your past is calling.

Gallagher's art style is generally pretty simple, but I really like the way she draws herself. Lots of expression in a few simple lines of the face. I wondered, reading it, how differently this book will ring for someone who is plus-size versus someone who is straight-size—it'll be relatable to anyone who has struggled with body image and/or an eating disorder, but frankly probably more relatable to people who have spent more time on...let's call it the thinner side of the American average? No criticism here, just guessing that it will feel different for someone who is a size 8 vs. a size 18.

Three and a half stars, and I'd be curious to see what sort of fiction Gallagher might come up with.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Though packaged in bright colours, Siobhan Gallagher’s memoir details the intense and brutal experience of growing up fat in a culture where “thin is in”. As a fat, queer woman who grew up around the same time as the author, the earlier segments of the book really hit home for me and renewed the ache of growing up “not enough” and “too much” at the same time.

She covers topics like eating disorders, self-harm, poor coping strategies, depression and anxiety while tying them tightly to her body image. This book will be deeply relatable for many who grew up fat, particularly with the lasting effects it has on your self-worth even decades later.

The second and third quarters felt a bit flat for me. Gallagher spends a lot of time laying out the compounding experiences of her life that battered her sense of self. I think my issue was with a lack of emotional weight to her language choices. I’m someone who really loves emotional depth, and this book grazed the painful surface of too many experiences instead of granting depth to the really formative ones.

An ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

There are some books that you can read and feel like you can relate to parts of the story or the characters - there are others that are shockingly so similar to your life experiences and thoughts that you have to close the book and take a deep breath when you realize you can’t hide from those thoughts you buried for years because they are right in front of you and someone else had them too.

I am so appreciative of this book and of Siobhan for telling her story. I loved every part of it, even when it made me feel sad. There were parts of her story that really had me thinking back to my childhood and growing up and she quite beautifully crystallized highlights of various eras in terms of fashion and whatever other fad there was. It’s impressive and beautiful, what she did.

I loved the message of this one, but it dragged on a bit too much in some areas to the point it disrupted the pacing and flow of the story. This could've been 60 pages shorter and gotten the exact same point across.

wow... just.. wow. I have no words for how healing and honest this graphic novel is, probably in my top 5 books I've read this year so far. Read it, read it, read it!

Trigger warnings for depictions of depression, smoking, drugs, alcohol/alcoholism, self harm and body image issues such as body dysmorphia and eating disorders.

This was my first experience reading a graphic memoir and I was pleasantly surprised. I found myself heavily relating to a lot of the experiences Siobhan went through because they mirrored my own experiences growing up, as well as many of the other issues that me and my fellow millennials can definitely relate to. At times I felt like some of the pages were extracted from my own childhood/teen diaries and because of this it made the book extremely relatable and just goes to show how no one is really immune to the pressures of society and growing up/finding yourself including body dysmorphia, sexism, mental health issues, etc. I found the graphic format enjoyable to read and I'm not sure it would have resonated the same way without the pictures. This book definitely makes me interested in trying other books in this format.

The style is very unique and fun! I commend the author on being vulnerable and honest through this memoir, but i do think this book dragged at some points and overall felt a little too long.

Siobhan Gallagher holds nothing back as she takes us on a tumultuous roller coaster of self-discovery and self-acceptance. Through unique, captivating graphics, Siobhan illustrates her struggles with different mental health conditions and attempts to find her purpose as a woman in today's judgmental, patriarchal society.

If you've ever felt lost or overwhelmed at any point in your life, this book is for you! Siobhan will make you feel comfortable and accepted as she teaches you a lesson or two about her years on this earth and the life lessons she's learned so far.