Review: "Hungry Ghost" by Victoria Ying

Hungry Ghost by Victoria Ying
Published April 2023 via First Second
★★★

Val is smart, popular, and under pressure—mostly from her mother, who cannot interact with Val without telling her that it's better to be thin, that it would be bad if she gained weight, that whatever she's eating is too much, that she should be careful so that she stays thin. Val has found a workaround: she eats, and then she throws up. It doesn't change her mother's comments—but it keeps her thin.

The art here is lovely; not as precise as the cover image, but with soothing, consistent shades of a foamy blue-green, a pale salmon, and a soft, purply grey. I would have liked to see some more from the side characters, though—although Val's best friend, Jordan, and her mother both get a reasonable amount of page time, there's very little from her mother that is not either grief (due to a mid-book plot point—I have rarely related to a character so much as when Val observes that I haven't really been able to think too much about my dad. I've just been trying to hold my mom together (119)) or food-shaming. It seems clear that her mother has some major issues of her own, but because we never see any of that (and very few gentler moments with Val) she's relegated to this role as, well, food-shamer extraordinaire. (I'm not sure if there's supposed to be a cultural aspect here—parent reluctant to give too much praise—but I don't want to assume, because neither that nor the background of the title is discussed.) I'd also have loved to see more of Val's brother, more of why she's interested in Allan, more of her world in general.

That said—I think the the themes of body image and grief will resonate heavily with many readers. Although I'd say that Val clearly has bulimia or purging disorder, not the vaguer 'disordered eating' claimed in the book, she's managing her eating disorder in a way that hasn't torpedoed her life (yet), which is, to most, probably more relatable than the more-common-in-YA-fiction eating disorder that rapidly turns into something imminently life-threatening and requiring hospitalization. Where Val might go from the end of the book is up to the reader's imagination, but hopefully it's to happier places.