Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Apr 2023
208 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
A beautiful and heart-wrenching young adult graphic novel takes a look at eating disorders, family dynamics, and ultimately, a journey to self-love.
Valerie Chu is quiet, studious, and above all, thin. No one, not even her best friend Jordan, knows that she has been binging and purging for years. But when tragedy strikes, Val finds herself taking a good, hard look at her priorities, her choices, and her own body. The path to happiness may lead her away from her hometown and her mother's toxic projections―but first she will have to find the strength to seek help.
"A gorgeously wrought, therapeutic story filled with tenderness and honesty." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Soft, pastel-toned illustrations and inimitably designed, emotive characters ferry a formidable story with a tidy ending that offers optimistic catharsis and healing for those contending with issues of anti-fat bias, body image, and disordered eating." —Publishers Weekly
"Ying's soft artwork, colored in pastel pinks and blues, nicely evokes Val's emotional journey through facial expressions and body language." ―Booklist
"The book's path toward healing is an example of bibliotherapy for teens. An excellent choice for YA collections." —School Library Journal
"Hungry Ghost is heartbreaking, hopeful, and frank about figuring out how to love yourself and even the people in your life who might stand in the way of that self-love. It's a beautiful, compelling book." ―Trung Le Nguyen, creator of The Magic Fish
"Victoria Ying gives us an unflinching look at eating disorders and loss in this heartbreaking story about learning to love yourself." ―Lily Williams, creator of Go With The Flow
"Such a beautiful, tragic, uplifting story about friendship and love. I wish I could have read this when I was a kid, but I'm also grateful that I've read it now. I'll be thinking about its message for a long time." ―MariNaomi, creator of Distant Stars
This information about Hungry Ghost was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Victoria Ying is an author and artist living in Los Angeles. She started her career in the arts by falling in love with comic books, which eventually turned into a career working in animation and graphic novels. She loves Japanese curry, putting things in her shopping cart online and taking them out again, and hanging out with her dopey dog. Her film credits include Frozen, Moana, Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Big Hero 6, and Paperman. She is the illustrator of the DC Comics graphic novel Diana: Princess of the Amazons and the author and illustrator of her original graphic novels City of Secrets and Hungry Ghost.
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