Who Would Like This Book:
Roxane Gay pulls no punches in this deeply personal, brutally honest memoir about living in a body that's at odds with society's expectations. Her writing is raw, vulnerable, and insightful - she tackles topics of trauma, body image, sexism, and the reality of moving through the world in a large body with refreshing candor. Fans of memoirs, feminist writing, or anyone looking to understand the intersections of trauma, identity, and culture will find Hunger both eye-opening and moving. This book is especially powerful for readers invested in body positivity, mental health, and empathy for lived experiences different from their own.
Who May Not Like This Book:
Some readers struggled with the book's repetitive structure and the intense focus on Gay's pain and body-related challenges, describing it as emotionally exhausting or even monotonous at times. If you prefer memoirs with a clear, uplifting arc or a resolution, you may find Hunger's refusal to offer easy answers frustrating. Those looking for practical advice, a traditional 'overcoming adversity' story, or lighter memoir fare may not connect with this work. Additionally, readers uncomfortable with discussions of trauma and body image issues should approach with care.
About:
'Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body' by Roxane Gay is a raw and honest memoir that delves into the author's experiences with trauma, weight, self-image, and the impact of sexual assault. Gay bravely opens up about her struggles, from being gang raped at a young age to using her body as a shield against the world, exploring themes of control, trauma, and societal perceptions of body image. Through her candid narrative, she invites readers to empathize with her journey and challenges them to reconsider their own biases and privileges.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Content warnings for Hunger include accounts of sexual assault, trauma, discussions about obesity and weight stigma, and mental health struggles.
From The Publisher:
From the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist: a searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself.
"I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. I buried the girl I was because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere. . . . I was trapped in my body, one that I barely recognized or understood, but at least I was safe."
In her phenomenally popular essays and long-running Tumblr blog, Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and body, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as "wildly undisciplined," Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she explores her past-including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life-and brings readers along on her journey to understand and ultimately save herself.
With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and power that have made her one of the most admired writers of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to learn to take care of yourself: how to feed your hungers for delicious and satisfying food, a smaller and safer body, and a body that can love and be loved-in a time when the bigger you are, the smaller your world becomes.
Ratings (38)
Incredible (8) | |
Loved It (12) | |
Liked It (14) | |
It Was OK (3) | |
Did Not Like (1) |
Reader Stats (102):
Read It (41) | |
Want To Read (42) | |
Did Not Finish (2) | |
Not Interested (17) |
3 comment(s)
3.5*.
this might be the best and most important book of 2017
gay's memoir, the title itself questioning her ownership of her body, is the most brutally honest and brave text i've ever seen
she talks about not just being having a woman's body in this world that will never accept them
she talks about being a "morbidly obese" woman in this world, where she is disrespected to a terrifying degree
gay decided to gain weight after a sexual assault at the age of twelve, with the reasoning that the bigger her body was, the more it would protect her from men
what follows is an unapologetic exploration of why she made that decision, how she feels about it now, whether she wants to change, and how the world treats her in the meantime (spoiler: not well)
i could never be this brave
please remember that you don't know anything about someone just from looking at their body
Too distressing
What can you read after
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body?
About the Author:
Roxane Gay is the author of the essay collection Bad Feminist, which was a New York Times bestseller; the novel An Untamed State, a finalist for the Dayton Peace Prize; the memoir Hunger, which was a New York Times bestseller and received a National Book Critics Circle citation; and the short story collections Difficult Women and Ayiti. A contributing opinion writer to the New York Times, she has also written for Time, McSweeney's, the Virginia Quarterly Review, the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Rumpus, Bookforum, and Salon. Her fiction has also been selected for The Best American Short Stories 2012, The Best American Mystery Stories 2014, and other anthologies. She is the author of World of Wakanda for Marvel. She lives in Lafayette, Indiana, and sometimes Los Angeles.
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