Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir by Tessa Hulls is an intense read, with several triggers. It is not meant for the sensitive reader, or someone who is just starting graphic novels. The style of illustrations are both what makes and breaks things. The black and white gives the tone but everything can blend together, especially when the author uses words as the illustrations or within the actual image. A few fourth wall breaks can stop the flow of stories, but overall this is an interesting and informative book. Tense at times, the author is writing a love letter to herself and her family, and in particular to her grandmother and mother. 
Hulls has a hard relationship with her mother. This stems from many things. Her mother grew up in Mao China as a half-Chinese/half-Dutch girl, and later would go to a prestigious school that would teach her to be a “good Eurasian” (too much to go into here, Hulls’ explanation is long, but fascinating). This gave her some privileges when she and her mother would escape to Hong Kong and later, America, but until then, the political situation would be deadly. She also grew up as a child who was forbidden a childhood as her own mother was declining into mental illness and she became the adult/the caregiver. The interesting part of the older women, especially the grandmother, is that on one hand, they are relatable and you can have empathy. At one point, Hulls says her grandmother was forced into an acceptalbe form of sex work due to her situation, so how can you not feel sorry for her? Her life as a woman in China was difficult, but also she was given an education when other girls were not. And yet, due to this, she would be persecuted by the regime and took the only path she was allowed to provide for herself and child. But also, this woman is selfish. She demands that her daughter care for her, to be a “good Chinese daughter.” And when she writes, she expects everyone to read her books, her short fame as a memoirist cuts deep and losing it was beyond hard. And that (and more) will shape her daughter into a mother and who will relate to Hulls in kind. Not given the time to be a child, she doesn’t know what children need. Therefore, again, a sympathetic character, but one who is selfish and unable to give what is needed, especially to an American daughter who was not brought up in the colonization world she was. Who must be sick, as how else would you explain her creativity? Her yearning for independence? For not being a “good Chinese daughter”? (Despite the fact that Hulls was never taught Chinese, or given straight answers to the past.) And how else can the mother exist if she is not caring for someone? It is the only way she knows how to give love. 
There is more, but the above is the reason why Hulls tells us of her journeys to China and Hong Kong to try and find her history, to try and understand a grandmother who mirrored her own mother in more ways than one, but also how she comes to understand the mother she has verse the mother she wanted. A point Hulls never comes out and says, but I took away from it was that these three women were a lot alike. Each woman had a “wild side,” needing independence, love and care. Each one had issues and especially with Hulls and her mother, a similar path: hoping on a bike to travel, to marry young (or in Hulls case engaged) to a not good person. And all three to try and connect, to hold onto something, even if it is a lie and a “ghost” (real or made up) of the past and in the meantime, it tries to drown.
Reminiscent of Radical: My Year with a Socialist Senator by Sofia Warren, with its emotion and in depth look at someone/situation(s) this graphic novel is worth the read, but not one that is easy.
