Nervosa - by Hayley Gold (Paperback)

About the Book

"Gold's memoir about disordered eating, chronic illness, and a profound relationship with hope."--

Book Synopsis

"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

Winner of the 2024 Graphic Medicine Award

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder. It is not a phase, a fad, or a choice. It is a debilitating illness, manifested in a distorted relationship with food, but which actually has more to do with issues of control. It is often a puzzle for doctors, therapists, parents, and friends. And so those who suffer from it are belittled, or tragically misunderstood, not only by society but by the healthcare system meant to treat it.

Nervosa is a no-holds-barred, richly textured portrait of one young woman's experience. In her vividly imagined retelling, Hayley Gold lays bare a callous medical system seemingly disinterested in the very patients it is supposed to treat. And traces how her own life was irrevocably damaged by both the system and her own disorder. With brutal honesty and witty sarcastic humor, Gold offers a remarkably candid exploration of the search for hope in the darkness.

Review Quotes

"A perceptive, heart-wrenching, deeply personal, beautifully drawn story of the writer's difficult upbringing and efforts to overcome it." --Will Shortz, crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times

"An unflinching debut memoir filled with sharply recalled details and darkly funny observations. . . . bring[ing] the readers intimately into the emotions of living with an eating disorder." --Publishers Weekly

A remarkably candid account. The compelling voice and graphic storytelling is intuitive and inventive throughout." --David Mazzucchelli, author of Asterios Polyp

"Pure gold. Brave and honest, poetic and balletic as it artfully dances into personal territory rarely touched in this medium." --Peter Kuper, author of the Eisner Award-winning Ruins

"Unflinching and heart-rending and at the same time caustic and hilarious. The inventive visual metaphors and obvious pleasure in language show us that art and creativity can be a path to hard-won hope." --Matt Madden, author of Ex Libris

"Funny, cruel, moral, austere, decorative, despairing, and triumphant. Comics were invented so that Hayley Gold could write and draw Nervosa."--Seth Tobocman, author of War in the Neighborhood

"I couldn't put it down. This powerful memoir shows how eating disorder patients are denied agency, and how healing only starts when one is finally able to express their voice."--Sarah Mirk, author of Guantanamo Voices

"Structurally brilliant, and darkly humorous, this revealing graphic memoir is an excellent read for anyone who is looking for companionship in this experience, or a window into living life with this disease."--Rachel Lindsay, author of RX: A Graphic Memoir

"Brilliantly, and with equal parts of humor, horror, and self-knowledge, this book teaches us that there are no common-sense answers to the paradoxes of anorexia, and that readers who hope for an easy 'cure' should expect to have their preconceived notions of what that word means shattered and reconstructed."--Jason Little, author of Borb

About the Author

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.