A grueling and exacting graphic memoir about eating disorders. Hayley Gold drags the reader into the trenches of the mental health system as she wages combat with the often despicable people who are supposed to be helping her. In the interest of fairness, she brutally presents the despicable aspects of her own personality, pushing my ability to empathize past the limits at times.

Dense and draining, it took me several days to grapple with this book, and even looking at it now pisses me off in so many different ways I know I can't fairly judge it . . . but yeah, I'll still put a star rating on it, dead in the middle between loving and hating it.

The one place where Gold loses me is in the illustrated avatar she uses for herself. Despite all her honesty throughout the book about her health issues, she depicts herself with an actual anorexic appearance only once in the entire book. I sort of get the choice, going for that one shocking moment, but it hit me more as deceptive or misleading to have her character appear wholly unaffected by her disorder -- appearing the same weight throughout the rest of the book from the first page to the last. ( )

Whip smart, hilarious and infuriatingly sad.

Triggering, I would say especially for people with anorexia and any eating disorder, suicidal ideation, and those in particularly difficult family relationships. I’m thinking that it might also be appealing and even useful for people who have OCD and maybe for some with all/any of the above.

I thought I’d seen poor care and ineffective treatment but reading about some of what happened here made me feel depressed and angry.

The ending was rather abrupt and while I think it was realistic (and I’ve read that there might be a sequel) I did not find it fully satisfying.

There is an unflinching look at the consequences of long term malnutrition. There is also a look at how hard it often is to recover from an eating disorder/mental health problem.

I enjoyed reading it. I loved the artwork and loved the writing. It was engrossing and powerful and hard to put down.

I recommend this book to all doctors and all therapists and hospital staff, especially those working with people of all ages who have eating disorders, OCD and mood disorders. ( )