Review: "Food School" by Jade Armstrong

Food School by Jade Armstrong
Published April 2024 via Conundrum Press
★★★★

A pleasant surprise. Food School is a quick graphic novel about a woman in an adult intensive outpatient program for an eating disorder. There's not a ton here that's new, but a couple of things that feel notable: first, this is about trying to get better, not about being sick. That might seem like a small distinction, but (take it from somebody who has read too much in specific genres and subgenres and subsubgenres...) it's actually a significant one. Second, Armstrong is good about avoiding (or rather, redacting) things that are realistic in the context of the story but that could be triggering to some readers. And third, while it's not unheard of to have an adult protagonist in this sort of thing, it's still uncommon, and it's nice to see Olive trying to figure out recovery (and I mean: genuinely trying, even when she hates being in the program and hates everyone around her and hates everything about it; she's often ambivalent and doesn't always get it right, but she knows why she's there) while also trying to adult. The ending is abrupt, but overall the story worked better for me than I expected.