This book chewed me up and spat me out.
I've read it three times and the emotional hit doesn't waver. Large sections of these wordless images highlight pain, anguish and despair.
Marie-Noëlle Hébert's graphic autobiography addresses her relationship with her body. It's one most, if not all women can connect to. Anyone who has ever dieted and or exercised to try and lose weight, will connect with much, if not all of this book.
The timeline jumps around from the present to different times in the past. We meet her at twenty, binge eating to shut out the noise of self hatred. It doesn't work. Eventually she reveals how her negative body image evolved over time.
Hébert was a chubby baby who grew up to be a large sized girl in a world that idolized thin princesses.
To the clothing industry, children like her don't exist. She loved to dance but had to give it up. When she was eight, her mother purchased women's clothes for her and hemmed them to fit.
As she grew older she endured bullying by her peers.
Family dinners, rather than being joyful celebrations, became more bombardment of negative comments.
By her teens she came to find fault with her body piece by piece. She ended up internalizing the fat shaming.
It isn't that she wasn't healthy. She played soccer and their coach worked them so hard she lost weight. Terrified of gaining the weight back, at the end of the season she joined the school running club.
Her obsession with dieting, exercising and losing weight wasn't enough to address her need to be seen, to be loved. She writes that she is "fat, but full of nothing."
Coming home from a running marathon, her father called her a Fat Cow. Her response begins with I HATE YOU, but ends up with I HATE ME. He continued to abuse her by calling her fat, and fat ass.
At the age of 17 she left home. While she revelled in the times spent with friends, she still never felt loved or seen. When her self loathing and depression overwhelmed her, she isolated herself. One friend, Matilda, stayed beside her. When Marie confided her suicidal thoughts to her, Matilda recommended a therapist.
Slowly she began to heal, to change her self talk, to start to love herself. She eventually became strong enough to confront her father.
Marie-Noëlle Hébert leaves us with some important messages about how we imprint who we are from what we learn in our families.
"Women pass down their body shame from generation to generation...The judgement of others.
The lack of self-esteem.
To not be fat forever.
They thought it was more important to teach me how to hold in my stomach than teach me to stand up and be proud of myself."
Thank you so much Marie-Noëlle Hébert for this important book. We need to do better by ourselves and each other so we can do better for our daughters and our sons.
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