shelidonDecember 5, 20191 Comment on Reading List: Lighter Than My Shadow

It’s December 5th and I know I should be remembering something, but I can’t remember what. I probably forgot someone’s birthday and if you’re reading this… sorry, I think. Anyway, I continue with my reading list of graphic novels about gender biases and struggles, gender-based violence, integration and diversity. It’s a list that started on November 25th and I hope I’ll be able to carry it on till December 10th. Today on the reading list…

Lighter Than My Shadow
by Katie Green

Like most kids, Katie was a picky eater. She’d sit at the table in silent protest, hide uneaten toast in her bedroom, listen to parental threats that she’d have to eat it for breakfast.

On the official website of the novel you can get a glimpse of the extraordinary style for the drawings of this extraordinary, highly intimist story, and you can read a preview of the first 30 pages. However, and for once I’m going to contradict my highly digital nature, is a book I recommend in physical form.
The black and white pattern, the scratches for the shadow, ever imposing on the main character, need to be touched and felt under the fingers, for this story that’s all about the perception of one’s body.

But in any life a set of circumstance can collide, and normal behavior might soon shade into something sinister, something deadly.

Lighter than my shadow starts off as the story of a girl who doesn’t like to eat.
And, if you know me, you might be wondering what the hell does that have to do with me and why would I like something like that.
I have quite a fond relationship with food, that’s true, and I think I can say that it’s also a healthy one. I like to eat, I love Countries with a food culture, I rarely skip lunch as a principle, I very rarely stress eat and I don’t eat outside of main meals. I’ve had friends with eating disorders, though, and I myself know what’s it like to be so psychologically shaken you are phisically unable to eat.
Lighter than my shadow is a story about that.

Lighter Than My Shadow is a hand-drawn story of struggle and recovery, a trip into the black heart of a taboo illness, an exposure of those who are so weak as to prey on the vulnerable, and an inspiration to anybody who believes in the human power to endure towards happiness.

“Dear Reader, You are holding the book I wish had been there for me”, writes Katie Green on the back of the volume. “It exists because I wanted nobody else to feel as lost, confused and alone as I felt. I wanted to be honest about how hard recovery is, and how long it takes, at the same time proving that it is possible”.

Ps: if you ever meet a man who shames women that are not super-skinny, telling them that they are fat, kick him hard where it hurts.