Available:*
Material Type | Library | Call Number | Suggested Age | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book | Searching... Cabell County Public Library | 741.5 GOL | Adult | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
"A vibrant graphic memoir full of dark humor, Nervosa is an insightful look into the torment of disordered eating that will be a source of comfort to others who struggle with their mental health." --STARRED REVIEW, Foreword Reviews
Author Notes
Hayley Gold is a comic book writer and artist. She studied cartooning at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Her first graphic novel, Letters to Margaret , published in 2021, is an exploration of culture wars through crossword puzzles and humor. Her work has been published in such anthologies as The Strumpet and World War 3 Illustrated. Hayley lives in New York City. She loves rabbits and the color cobalt blue.
Reviews (1)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Gold chronicles her lengthy struggle with anorexia in an unflinching debut memoir filled with sharply recalled details and darkly funny observations. Affected by her father's verbal abuse and her mother's inability to stand up to him, she developed an obsession with counting calories at a young age and was first hospitalized with an eating disorder at 12. The medicalization of her condition and constant pressure to gain weight ("Stop crying, it burns calories," scolds a doctor) made her more body-conscious than ever, and her fellow patients schooled her in weight-loss tricks. Eventually she wound up at Westchester, a former asylum "right out of a storybook" where the staff was quick to hook uncooperative patients up to feeding tubes. Gold's gestural artwork is expressive, and her analytical personality--her one great pleasure while hospitalized is mastering crossword puzzles--comes through visually in her fondness for drawing diagrams, floor plans, and flowcharts. Her anorexia, meanwhile, appears as a shadow self who sneers at offers of help. The narrative stretches a little long, as if Gold was afraid to leave out a single memory, and her teenage self's snarky defensiveness can become grating. But her frank insights bring readers intimately into the emotions of living with an eating disorder. Agent: Bob Mecoy, Creative Book Services. (Apr.)
