Full of Myself: A Graphic Memoir About Body Image

by Siobhán Gallagher

Overview

Author and illustrator Siobhán Gallagher’s humorous and heartfelt graphic memoir details her journey from being anxious and unhappy to learning to love herself as she is.

"I’m proud of the person I’ve become because I fought to become her." At the age of 30, Siobhán Gallagher looks back on her teenage years struggling with anxiety and diet culture, desperate to become a beautiful, savvy, and slim adult. As an actual adult, she realizes she hasn’t turned out the way she’d imagined, but through the hard work of self-reflection—cut with plenty of humor—Gallagher brings readers along on her journey to self-acceptance and self-love.

Through witty comics and striking illustrations, Full of Myself is a highly relatable story of the awkward, imperfect, and hilariously honest teenage best friend readers will wish they had had—and the awkward, imperfect, and hilariously honest woman she becomes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781524895556
Publisher:	Andrews McMeel Publishing
Publication date:	04/02/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	75 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Siobhán Gallagher is an illustrator and designer living in Kansas City. She has illustrated books by Chelsea Clinton, Mayim Bialik, and for Penguin Classics. In addition, her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Elle Canada, and Huffington Post.

Editorial Reviews

04/29/2024

Part graphic memoir, part self-help manual, Gallagher’s accessible debut draws on examples from her own life to explore how women are taught to see themselves. “To be a girl is to go from being an observer to being observed,” she writes, recalling the negative body image she developed at a young age (“If I were a Pokémon, I bet I’d be one of the ugly ones... like Psyduck”), her fear of being the “fat friend” in her social group, the sexual harassment she experienced in one workplace after another, and her struggles with depression, bulimia, and cutting. Though she doesn’t shy away from dark confessions, she finds humor in her efforts to get comfortable in her body. With cheery art and wry humor, she draws her changing fashion choices over the decades (the ’90s features “my most provocative scrunchie: red silk in black mesh”) and depicts her first serious relationship as a TV rom-com. Throughout, her friendly cartoon avatar offers advice on unlearning harmful cultural messages and developing a healthy body image. Young adults in particular will appreciate Gallagher’s agility at connecting her individual experiences to universal feminist issues. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"None of us can communicate with our younger selves, to tell them not to get ill-advised piercings, or date bad men, or hate themselves. But as soon as I find a time machine, I'm sending this compassionate, hilarious book to younger me. (Adult me is keeping another copy for herself.)" (Emma Allen, The New Yorker Cartoon Editor)

"Full of Myself is a perfect showcase of Siobhán’s superpowers—stunning art, incredibly relatable humor, and vulnerable storytelling that left me wishing there were at least five more volumes. If you also grew up in the age of LimeWire and low rise jeans, this graphic novel will heal your inner child in ways you never knew you needed. (Also, it’s just nice to meet fellow victims of the big boob pencil test.) I’m calling it now—Siobhán is the millennial Judy Blume." (Sam Reece, Creator & Author of Shitty Craft Club)

"It's wonderful and all too relatable. I think many people will see themselves in it, I certainly did, which is putting the truth to that saying that the most personal is most universal." (Kate Beaton, New York Times bestselling cartoonist)

"This book will make you feel intimately seen and appreciated while absolutely READING YOU for how hard you are being on yourself. Also, it’s fucking hilarious. I’ve been a fan of Siobhan’s for years and can’t wait to gift this to every woman I know." (Stephanie Beatriz, American actress)

"I laughed. I cried. I laugh-cried. This book will make you love Siobhán so much, but it will also make you love yourself. What a gift!" (Chelsea Devantez, comedian, writer, podcast host)

"The 1990s and early 2000s were such a toxic time for women and body image that many of us who grew up in that era are still unable to fully face it and talk about it honestly. Siobhan Gallagher faces the struggle head-on in such an honest, raw, and unflinching way that it's hard to read, but in a good way. A great way. Full of Myself is painful, but also funny and cathartic and should be required reading for anyone with a body." (Julia Wertz, author of Impossible People)

From the Publisher