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Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

by Roxane Gay (Goodreads Author)

4.49 · Rating Details · 4,572 Ratings · 823 Reviews

From the 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 t ...more

Hardcover, 320 pages

Published June 13th 2017 by HarperCollins

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Jul 31, 2014 Roxane rated it it was amazing · (Review from the author)

I haven't written this yet but it will be okay. Food is delicious.

UPDATE: I have created a Word File entitled Hunger_Book. I have copied and pasted many Tumblr entries into this file along with some ideas as to how to give the book shape. Food is still delicious.

UPDATE 2: This book is still in progress so your low ratings are funny. Is this a motivational tool? It's working.

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May 25, 2017 Emily May rated it it was amazing

Shelves: memoirs-or-bios, non-fiction, arc, 2017

People see bodies like mine and make their assumptions. They think they know the why of my body. They do not. This is not a story of triumph, but this is a story that demands to be told and deserves to be heard.

How do I even begin? If I could give this book a hundred stars, I would. And no, not just because it is important and it is heartbreaking - which it is both - but because Gay is one of the best writers I've ever known. The difficulty was deciding how to use quotes without quoting the whole damn book.

I was glued to the pages, completely rapt, as the author used words to create a plethora of emotions and reveal things about the world we live in. This is Gay's memoir from the time she was gang raped at twelve-years-old, to her later need to use food to build a fortress around herself, to her more recent life as a woman categorized as the horrendous phrase "super morbidly obese".

Mine is not a success story. Mine is, simply, a true story.

It is not a memoir that asks for our pity, or tries to manipulate the reader, it is simply a woman's truth. Gay's self-awareness is painful to read as she talks about experiences in narrow seating on airlines, in movie theatres or restaurants, or at events. The assumptions people make about her; the "concerns" for her health; the ultimate belief that as a woman, a fat woman, she just takes up too much space.

You can tell on the rare occasions when an author really lays themselves bare. Gay says the things that many are - for a whole variety of reasons - afraid to say. About rape culture, about fat people, about fat women, and about the fat acceptance movement. She says she prefers "victim" to "survivor" because she has been hurt and has suffered from what happened to her, and she doesn't want to turn into something more empowering than it actually is.

I do not want pity or appreciation or advice. I am not brave or heroic. I am not strong. I am not special. I am one woman who has experienced something countless women have experienced. I am a victim who survived.
***
He said/she said is why so many victims (or survivors, if you prefer that terminology) don’t come forward. All too often, what “he said” matters more, so we just swallow the truth. We swallow it, and more often than not, that truth turns rancid. It spreads through the body like an infection. It becomes depression or addiction or obsession or some other physical manifestation of the silence of what she would have said, needed to say, couldn’t say.

When she talks about the FAM, she considers what many fat-positive women and men are not supposed to say - that it is not a simple matter of deciding that one's fatness is okay and attractive. We do not live in a world that allows for that mentality to take hold instantly, no matter how much we tell ourselves that weight and size do not matter.

To be clear, the fat acceptance movement is important, affirming, and profoundly necessary, but I also believe that part of fat acceptance is accepting that some of us struggle with body image and haven’t reached a place of peace and unconditional self-acceptance.

It is an incredibly powerful memoir that is made even more so by the raw, uncensored truth Gay brings to it. Gay is not happy with her body, but also angry at the world for being a place that makes her unhappy with her body. She says she is not strong and that she is not brave, but I beg to differ. Writing a book like this in a world like this-- I'd say she's one of the strongest, bravest writers I know.

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Jun 11, 2017 Elyse rated it it was amazing

Beautifully written....

Tender, poignant and courageous....

Heartfelt, heartbreaking and brave....

Clearly, Roxanne's book deals with a dark, difficult and important subject. I can't imagine anyone more suited to explore what it means to be overweight.......
"in a time when the bigger you are, the less you are seen".

"Hunger" is a story that needed to be written.

Roxane Gay says....."writing this book is the most difficult thing I've ever done. Too lay myself so vulnerable has not been an easy thing ...more

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Apr 30, 2017 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ebooks, biography-memoir, reviewcopy, read2017

The thing I always admire about Roxane Gay's writing, even when it makes me uncomfortable, is her ability to tackle issues head-on, with unflinching honesty. She may have hesitated, but you never see it on the page.

This very open memoir about hunger and size is powerful. This is Roxane Gay's experience, laid bare. I can't imagine what it took for her to get all of these thoughts on the page. There is a bit of repetition or overlap between the tiny chapters, but this is reflective of the daily li ...more

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Jun 25, 2017 Hannah rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: loved-it, non-fiction, memoir

This is the memoir I will compare all other memoirs against. Roxane Gay has written one hell of a perfect book. If I hadn't been a fan before, I would for sure be one now. Not only is this an honest, unflinching look at herself and her life and her choices, it is also stylistically beautiful in a way most books (fiction or non-fiction) never achieve.

Roxane Gay tells, quite literally, the story of her body. She is completely and brutally honest in her approach and does not mince her words when de ...more

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Apr 22, 2017 Jessica rated it it was amazing

Shelves: biography-memoir, arc-egalley, diverse-reads

Update: I had to share Roxane's interview on the Daily Show, because it's amazing.

Holy shit, Roxane Gay has written one hell of a memoir. This book is powerful on about forty-seven different levels and I really think that it ought to be required reading for anyone interested in feminism and the body-positive movement. But also, just anyone who wants to read good writing because holy shit, Roxane Gay: How do you write like this?! It's kind of unfair.

This book was originally announced as a 2016 Update: I had to share Roxane's interview on the Daily Show, because it's amazing.

Holy shit, Roxane Gay has written one hell of a memoir. This book is powerful on about forty-seven different levels and I really think that it ought to be required reading for anyone interested in feminism and the body-positive movement. But also, just anyone who wants to read good writing because holy shit, Roxane Gay: How do you write like this?! It's kind of unfair.

This book was originally announced as a 2016 summer release, but it got pushed back because she needed some more time to work on it. Within half an hour of starting this book, it's obvious why she needed that time. This is one of the most intensely personal things I've ever read and it's full of so much pain that was clearly never fully processed. Writing it must have been the most difficult thing in the world.

With that in mind, reading this was not easy. It was sometimes so brutal that I had to set it down, and yet it was so engrossing that I still managed to read it in just over 24 hours.

So here it is: Roxane Gay is a fat woman. At her heaviest, she weighed nearly 600 pounds. She’s smaller than that today, but she’s still a very large woman. She sometimes feels like that fact makes up her sole identity. Which is a shame because so many people love her intellect but also obvious because that's the world we live in and it can’t be an easy thing for her to navigate. I struggle with it, and I’m only 30 pounds(ish) heavier than I want to be. I feel like the fattest woman in the world some days, even though rationally I know I’m not. I don’t even need plus-size clothing, so I can’t imagine what it must be like when the numbers are exponentially larger.

Even though Gay spends a lot of time probing the psychological barriers that have contributed to her weight gain, this book isn’t about “making excuses.” When she was 12, Gay was gang-raped by a group of boys and she didn’t tell anyone about it...for 30 years. She didn’t know how to ask for the help she needed, so she just kept it all in. The self-blame, the depression, the bullying and slut-shaming she received. The next year, she left home for boarding school and she discovered comfort in the form of food. Without any adults really keeping an eye on her, she began to gain weight. Her feelings of trauma and her need for comfort were so intense that her weight gain was rather dramatic. Her family was startled by the change, but didn’t know the psychological roots and so their response really just made her feel worse. She began to conflate her size and her individual self-worth, which really only intensified her depression and led her to seek yet more comfort in food.

This is a powerful statement in favor of the body-positive movement, even if Gay doesn’t want it to be or doesn’t seem to think it needs to be. But here’s the thing: so many people are down on that movement because, “Well being fat isn’t healthy and accepting that someone is fat is bad for them. If we really wanted to help, we’d encourage them to lose that weight.” Gay skewers that point of view so well here, even if she doesn’t explicitly intend to. She knows she’s fat, she knows how she got there, and she harbors no illusions about it. She doesn’t want to be fat and she’s even taken some steps to lose some of the weight. But it’s hard to go to a gym and get exercise when you’re 400 pounds when the other people at the gym make you feel like shit because you’re 400 pounds. She doesn’t need fit people telling her that being fat is unhealthy and she should lose weight.

It’s hard to break habits that you’ve held for decades, especially when your self-image is so tightly wound up with the way your body looks: you feel bad because of the weight, so you comfort yourself with food and gain more weight, then you feel even worse. And so much of our culture winds those things together so tightly. This bond is magnified when, like Gay, your initial weight gain is largely tied to mental health issues with other causes. There’s a lot of psychological layers to dig through, and maybe if our culture allowed people (women) to separate their feelings of value from their weight, it might actually help with both the value and the weight.

Long story short: the “fat acceptance” movement, as it gets derisively called, isn’t about letting people be as fat and as unhealthy as they want. It’s about letting them feel good about themselves even though they are fat. Being fat shouldn't be the sole thing that makes up your identity.

This is a hard, hard book to read because Gay goes into a lot of traumatic issues, particularly sexual assault. Tread carefully if you’re sensitive to those kinds of things. But there’s so much to think about in this book. It shines a new light on her previous work, it’s an unapologetic look at mental health and obesity and trauma and rape culture, and it’s one woman’s beautifully written account of a difficult life story. It's one of the best memoirs I've ever read and I can't recommend it enough. ...more

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May 06, 2017 Sam rated it it was amazing

Shelves: aty-challenge-2017, 2017-reads

Roxane Gay, thank you.

Unflinching honesty, ugly and beautiful truth. Reading Roxane Gay's memoir Hunger is at once a difficult, intimate endeavor, but the sheer power of Gay's blunt, unsparingly honest prose made this a single sitting read for me, gobsmacked by her willingness to reveal the depths of her pain, her rage, her hope, her insecurities, her jealousy, and her hunger for so many things in this world, some attainable and some tantalizingly out of reach due to physical, cultural, societal Roxane Gay, thank you.

Unflinching honesty, ugly and beautiful truth. Reading Roxane Gay's memoir Hunger is at once a difficult, intimate endeavor, but the sheer power of Gay's blunt, unsparingly honest prose made this a single sitting read for me, gobsmacked by her willingness to reveal the depths of her pain, her rage, her hope, her insecurities, her jealousy, and her hunger for so many things in this world, some attainable and some tantalizingly out of reach due to physical, cultural, societal, or self imposed limitations. This is a memoir of Gay's body, but she does in his memoir what she asks, begs, demands, fears, hungers for: the reader must see her body, indeed through her eyes we for a moment can feel what it is to inhabit her body, but the reader is also confronted with the nuance and complexity and intelligence and whirlwind of thoughts and desires and emotions that Gay is just as much as her body, and that too often has been stripped away from her in terms of how modern American culture views a woman of size.

And as specific as it is, this immersal into the mind and heart and body of Gay, there is so much here that resonates and reverberates loudly, into the collective experience, the female experience, the black experience. There is so much at work here: rape, trauma, alienation, sexuality, familial relationships, the myriad sides and natures of America and how its people deny and demean (but also embrace and love). And perhaps I may have more in common with Gay than the average reader or even if I don't, perceive a closer kinship - biracial, 5' 10", boarding school kid, in my adult years always tending heavier than I'd (and my family) would like me to be and the requisite concern and veneration of thinness=happiness that comes with that. Gay's ability to probe into the parts of herself she keeps hidden or submerged and bring that multitude of passion and feeling to the surface is incredibly moving, and at least for me, I was able to revel in and admire her honesty while also being forced to consider my own (or lack of it), truths about my complicity in terms of being part of a culture that simultaneously erases fat people but also can't help but accost them and reduce them to sheer mass and BMI and numbers on a scale, truths about how I often elevate the needs and desires of others far above those of my own and deny myself the power and importance of my hunger. I'm not a usually a memoir reader, but the ones I love best achieve this fantastic union of individual and universal. On the side of the individual story, there is specificity and intimacy and honesty; on he side of the universal, there is application for a new way of evaluating the world around you, a new way of understanding, a new perspective to consider. Gay's Hunger did all of those things, but for me struck personally, I felt how she felt and also felt my own feelings, I watched her rage and grieve and fear and felt my own rage and grief and fear. And the power of her honesty in writing this book has at least given me some courage or strength to be honest in my review of her work, even if I cannot yet be as honest about myself.

I'm just a girl on Goodreads, and I'm nowhere near as willing to be publicly honest as Gay, but in reading Hunger I couldn't help but be bowled over, experiencing her story and her life, watching her contextualize her experience and evaluate where all of us stand in being complicit with the inequities and indignities of the society we're all part of, letting Gay's sharp, blunt truth penetrate parts of myself I don't surface and force or prompt self-examination. I think Hunger will appeal widely, hitting for fans of Gay's previous work and for those memoir type readers who are ok with an uncomfortable, challenging, honest experience getting into the skin and mind and heart of someone else. For me, this will be one of the most powerful and transformative and necessary reads of 2017. 5 stars, given with a lump in the throat and watery eyes and feeling both full and drained after reading and processing and reviewing.

-received an ARC on edelweiss thanks to Harper Collins

...more

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Jun 20, 2017 Thomas rated it it was amazing

Shelves: five-stars, nonfiction, own-physical, 2nd-favorites, own-signed, psychology, biography-or-memoir, feminism

I finished Hunger five hours ago and still feel such overwhelming gratitude for Roxane Gay's writing; this memoir is my favorite 2017 read by far and one of those rare works that makes me so thankful for my ability to read at all. Hunger focuses on Gay's fatness, how being fat has affected her life in so many negative and unfair ways, and the rape she experienced as a twelve-year-old that precipitated her weight gain. She has an enormous talent for confronting complex, ugly truths in her writing I finished Hunger five hours ago and still feel such overwhelming gratitude for Roxane Gay's writing; this memoir is my favorite 2017 read by far and one of those rare works that makes me so thankful for my ability to read at all. Hunger focuses on Gay's fatness, how being fat has affected her life in so many negative and unfair ways, and the rape she experienced as a twelve-year-old that precipitated her weight gain. She has an enormous talent for confronting complex, ugly truths in her writing and for injecting nuance into difficult subjects that we would rather see as simple. There are no clear victories or easy solutions in Hunger. Instead of cookie-cutter niceties, Gay offers a harrowing and honest account of her suffering, as well as the painful, slow, and necessary steps she has taken to heal. As writer Caroline Knapp does in her splendid memoir Appetites , Gay blends the personal and the political with great skill, showing how food intersects with feminism which intersects with sexism which intersects with trauma and so much more. A passage that exemplifies what I mean:

"Losing control of my body was a matter of accretion. I began eating to change my body. I was willful in this. Some boys had destroyed me, and I barely survived it. I knew I wouldn't be able to endure another such violation, and so I ate because I thought that if my body became repulsive, I could keep men away. Even at that young age, I understood that to be fat was to be undesirable to men, to be beneath their contempt, and I already knew too much about their contempt. This is what most girls are taught - that we should be slender and small. We should not take up space. We should be seen and not heard, and if we are seen, we should be pleasing to men, acceptable to society. And most women know this, that we are supposed to disappear, but it's something that needs to be said, loudly, over and over again, so that we can resist surrendering to what is expected of us."

As with all great memoirs, Gay's vulnerability in Hunger makes it a phenomenal, empathy-inspiring read. She shares some of the most embarrassing, disturbing instances of discrimination she has faced as a fat person, ranging from both internet trolls and medical professionals berating her because of her weight, to how she could not find seating that would fit her in airplanes, movie theaters, etc. She elevates the intensity and quality of these disclosures by admitting the painful emotions that accompanied them: her sheer hunger for both the safety of invisibility and her right to visibility, the self-loathing society instilled within her because of her weight, and her desperate and sometimes self-destructive pleas for love. In large part because of her distinct voice, Gay somehow manages to make this memoir insightful, heartbreaking, uncomfortable, authentic, and sometimes even humorous all at once.

Overall, a difficult and worthwhile book I would recommend to everyone. I had the pleasure of getting dinner with Ms. Gay when she visited my college's campus in 2015, where she mentioned to me that she was working on this book. As a nineteen-year-old, I was intimidated and starstruck by her intelligence and wit. But ultimately, I was won over by how human she was: she was tired that day from an exhausting flight and it showed, and she still exuded kindness and good humor. I could hear her incisive and self-aware and oh so human voice in every single page of Hunger. I want to share one last quote from the book to close this review:

"In writing this memoir of my body, in telling you these truths about my body, I am sharing my truth and mine alone. I understand if the truth is not something you want to hear. The truth makes me uncomfortable too. But I am also saying, here is my heart, what's left of it. Here I am showing you the ferocity of my hunger. Here I am, finally freeing myself to be vulnerable and terribly human. Here I am, reveling in that freedom. Here. See what I hunger for and what my truth has allowed me to create."

Thank you, Roxane Gay, for empowering victims and survivors of eating disorders and various forms of assault - myself included - to honor our hunger and to use our stories to create. Thank you for showing, once again, how writing can unify and fortify and ultimately, help in the healing process. ...more

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Jun 20, 2017 Erin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: popsugar-2017-challenge, biography-challenge-2017, june-2017, written-by-women

Roxane Gay is a National treasure.

Hunger by Roxane Gay is raw, gritty, honest, heartbreaking, powerful, and beautiful. I can't say enough amazing things about Roxane Gay and her important words. Hunger explores the lasting effects trauma has had on Roxane's life. At 12 years old she was brutally gang raped by a boy she had a crush on and his friends. She kept this awful secret for thirty years, blaming herself as so many survivors of rape do. She gained weight in order to shield herself and mak Roxane Gay is a National treasure.

Hunger by Roxane Gay is raw, gritty, honest, heartbreaking, powerful, and beautiful. I can't say enough amazing things about Roxane Gay and her important words. Hunger explores the lasting effects trauma has had on Roxane's life. At 12 years old she was brutally gang raped by a boy she had a crush on and his friends. She kept this awful secret for thirty years, blaming herself as so many survivors of rape do. She gained weight in order to shield herself and make herself unattractive to male desire.

I was so angry reading this book, I wanted to (& still do) hunt down the assholes who raped her. I was so angry at the people who treated her like she was subhuman just because she's overweight. The things this woman has had to deal with are unimaginable. I don't know how she gets out of bed everyday. I don't know that I could if I were her, but she's a much stronger woman than I am.

I don't know anybody who hasnt struggled with body image. Even the beautiful people sometimes feel fat and ugly. I think everyone should be able to relate to Roxane's struggle, even if you aren't morbidly obese like her. Roxane describes her body as being "unruly". I like that term, it perfectly describes how I feel about my body. I often feel like my body has a mind of its own and I beg it to please just do what I want it to. It rarely listens to me, because its unruly. I've been overweight for the vast majority of my life. I had my thin years( they were also my most unhappy years). For me food is love. My family shows it loves you through food. If you're sad, they feed you. If you're happy, they feed you. I'm a happy eater, I can't eat when I'm sad or unhappy. In the two weeks after my mother died I lost 10LBs. I could not ingest food at all. When I was my thinnest, my life was hell. I would go days without eating anything and when I did eat it was popcorn or cotton balls dipped in orange juice....but I looked great and everyone said so. The compliments just flowed. I felt like hell but looked like heaven. I had a socially acceptable look so people ignored my misery.

Hunger spoke to me and reminded me of that person I thankfully overcame. I recommend everyone read this book. Its important and necessary.

Popsugar 2017 Reading Challenge: Book By or About a Person who has a disability. ...more

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Apr 27, 2017 Jessica Woodbury rated it it was amazing

Shelves: arc, authors-of-color, lgbtq, nonfiction, memoir, best-2017-arcs

It does not happen very often that you read a memoir that makes you rethink what memoir is for and what it can do, but when it does it is a very special experience. HUNGER is that kind of memoir.

Gay wants her readers to understand not just who she is and what her experience in the world has been. She wants them to know what it is like to exist in her body. I am a woman, so of course my experience thinking about my body and what others see and how I am treated because of it is going to be signif It does not happen very often that you read a memoir that makes you rethink what memoir is for and what it can do, but when it does it is a very special experience. HUNGER is that kind of memoir.

Gay wants her readers to understand not just who she is and what her experience in the world has been. She wants them to know what it is like to exist in her body. I am a woman, so of course my experience thinking about my body and what others see and how I am treated because of it is going to be significantly different than a man's. But I am also a woman with a body that society would deem relatively normal. I have considered but never truly understood what it would be like to be in a body that was deemed unacceptable.

I see it as my job to tell you what the experience of reading this book is like, just as Gay's job is to give you the experience of living in her body. And I have struggled for days to figure out how to express it.

If you regularly read Gay's writing and follow her on Twitter, you will find her voice here familiar. But her writing here feels very different than her fiction and her essays. There is still that sharpness, that ability to define something with precision in a way it has never been defined before that I always appreciate. But there is also a bluntness and straightforwardness. It feels like a direct line from the reader to her brain. These chapters are often short, often lacking a narrative. I suspect some readers may find it repetitive, and yet when you are stuck in denial or self-destruction or depression or other difficult emotions your life is repetitive and Gay captures that.

When reading DIFFICULT WOMEN I wrote that I felt seen in ways I'd never felt from a book before. With HUNGER I feel like I have seen someone else in a way I never have from a book before.

I hesitate to say much more than that because I feel like there is no point. I am not a good enough writer to fully describe how it is to read this book. I read it obsessively. I went to a bar and ordered a beer and sat down with this book and read it and sometimes looked up and took a break and listened to people. Then I ordered another beer and read and took little breaks. I could not stop until I was finished. I could not go to sleep until it was done. It did not matter if I cried in a bar, it was simply how the world was and I was simply living in it. ...more

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Jul 06, 2017 Vanessa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Part self loathing part empowering account of a woman dealing and living with her life long weight demons.

She recounts so many of the indignities that befall her as a larger person in today's society.

It's both incredibly uncomfortable and comforting to hear someone else describe trauma and pain so acutely. It makes your own pain and troubles feel not so isolating. I found some of the stories here so brutally honest and feel so ashamed at humanity. The cruelty, the indignity she suffered due to ...more

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Jul 12, 2017 Esil rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audiobook

Listening to Roxanne Gay read her memoir, Hunger, was like listening to a close friend divulging some of her most painful and intimate memories, thoughts and feelings -- if that friend also happened to be a wickedly good writer. It was uncomfortable, heartbreaking and awe inspiring. I've read other excellent books by women who talk about their own and society's reactions to their large bodies, but Hunger is in its own class -- so smart and real and infinitely nuanced.

I can't think of anything m ...more

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Jun 28, 2017 Jennifer rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction, stand-alone-novel, memoir-biography-autobiography, listened-to-audiobook, changed-my-perspective, read-2017, oh-the-writing

“This is a memoir of (my) body because, more often than not, stories of bodies like mine are ignored or dismissed or derided. People see bodies like mine and make their assumptions. They think they know the why of my body. They do not.”

Damn this is some raw stuff here. Roxane Gay's honesty about very real issues - both internal and external - will surely open up validation, empathy, perspective, and a line of communication for others. The human condition is complex enough but it can turn in ...more

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Jun 26, 2017 Ammar rated it really liked it

Shelves: female-authors, read-in-2017

raw
to the bone
sincere
frustrating
shocking
and full of pain

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May 25, 2017 Rebecca Foster rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: memoirs, read-via-edelweiss

(3.5) I’d never read anything by Roxane Gay before, but somehow already knew the basics of her story: the daughter of Haitian immigrants to the American Midwest, she was gang raped at age 12, and to some extent everything she’s done and become since then has been influenced by that one horrific experience. Not least her compulsive overeating: “I ate and ate and ate to build my body into a fortress,”she writes, as if the bigger she grew the safer she would remain. At her heaviest Gay was super mo (3.5) I’d never read anything by Roxane Gay before, but somehow already knew the basics of her story: the daughter of Haitian immigrants to the American Midwest, she was gang raped at age 12, and to some extent everything she’s done and become since then has been influenced by that one horrific experience. Not least her compulsive overeating: “I ate and ate and ate to build my body into a fortress,”she writes, as if the bigger she grew the safer she would remain. At her heaviest Gay was super morbidly obese according to her BMI, a term that “frames fat people like we are the walking dead.”

Though presented as a memoir, this is more like a collection of short autobiographical essays (88 of them, in six sections). The portions that could together be dubbed her life story take up about a third of the book, maybe a little more, and the rest is riffs around a cluster of related topics: weight, diet, exercise and body image. The writing style is matter-of-fact (e.g. “My body is a cage of my own making”), which means the author never comes across as self-pitying even when what she is describing is desperately sad. I also appreciate how she holds opposing notions in tension: she doesn’t know how she developed such an “unruly” body; she knows exactly how it happened. She recognizes that there are many kinds of hunger, emotional as well as physical, and that shame, guilt and comfort are complex concepts.

The structure of the book made it a little repetitive for me, but I think that what Gay has written will be of tremendous value, not just to rape victims or those whose BMI is classed as obese, but to anyone who has struggled with body image – so pretty much everyone, especially females. And there are some moments here I’m going to have a hard time forgetting: Gay locking eyes with a blonde at the gym and defiantly completing a full hour on the exercise bike, a man putting up a fuss about her being next to him in the emergency exit row on a plane and her silent crying after he moved seats, and (somehow worst of all) learning how to be bulimic from the Internet.

I’ll be interested to try the rest of Gay’s work; I have her short story collection Difficult Women on Kindle. ...more

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Jun 29, 2017 Blair rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, biography-or-memoir, read-on-kindle, 2017-release

I only meant to read a sample of Hunger, but I found the first few chapters so compelling that I had to read on. The author opens with some clear statements: every body has a story, this is hers; it is not a weight-loss memoir; not a motivational book, nor a 'success story', but simply a true story. From the beginning, she is disarmingly honest and open. She talks about her struggle to accept her size and her experiences as a fat woman, but this is much more than just a book about food, weight a I only meant to read a sample of Hunger, but I found the first few chapters so compelling that I had to read on. The author opens with some clear statements: every body has a story, this is hers; it is not a weight-loss memoir; not a motivational book, nor a 'success story', but simply a true story. From the beginning, she is disarmingly honest and open. She talks about her struggle to accept her size and her experiences as a fat woman, but this is much more than just a book about food, weight and body image. Subtitled 'a memoir of (my) body', Hunger is just as much a memoir of mind.

In painful scenes – which must have been unimaginably difficult to write – Gay revisits the trauma that led her to begin overeating and had a lasting impact on her life. She talks about her struggles with self-loathing, her relationship with her parents and siblings, and how her gender, race, and specific cultural background (she is from a Haitian American family) have informed her experiences and self-image. She portrays her 'lost years', when she ran away from home and the prospect of a university education and fell into a series of short-lived – often destructive – relationships. There's no neatly wrapped-up resolution here, just a raw, messy, human story with a lot of struggling and glimmers of hope.

In recent years, rising concerns around diversity and feminism have ensured that some progress has been made in changing the narrative around what types of bodies, particularly female bodies, we see as 'acceptable'. Nevertheless, it's still all too easy to feel you've somehow failed if you're not joyously and loudly happy with your body. What if you're ambivalent about it? What if that ambivalence makes you feel guilty and creates even more of a vicious circle of self-hate? What if one's weight and how they feel about it is bound up with past trauma and mental health issues? Gay's account feels necessary. I was struck by the lucidity of so many statements and questions she makes/asks, for example:

'What I know and what I feel are two very different things. Feeling comfortable in my body isn't entirely about beauty standards. It is not entirely about ideals. It's about how I feel in my skin and bones, from one day to the next.'

'Intellectually, I recognise that I am not the problem. This world and its unwillingness to accept and accommodate me are the problem. But I suspect it is more likely that I can change before this culture and its attitudes toward fat people will change. In addition to fighting the "good fight" about body positivity, I also need to think about the quality of my life in the here and now.'

'What does it say about our culture that the desire for weight loss is considered a default feature of womanhood?'

When I first heard about Hunger, I had the impression that it was going to be an autobiography-cum-recipe book, born of the freeform cooking posts Gay used to do on her Tumblr, though I can no longer remember whether that was ever actually announced or whether it was just an assumption I made. I mention it because the book doesn't have much in the way of a structure: it's not a chronological memoir; there are lots of short chapters, some of which feel like they have a theme, some of which don't. The upside of this: it enhances the sense that you're reading an incredibly personal piece of writing, a stream of consciousness with minimal editing. The downside: it is occasionally repetitive, and some phrases which initially seem poignant become slightly irritating through overuse.

It's the honesty and clarity of Gay's prose that makes Hunger such a propulsive read. Her style is addictive – so simple, very easy to read, yet she says and reveals so much. I really love her writing, and I love the way she comes across as an individual. After finishing Hunger I really wanted to hug her (although she's not a hugger, and for that matter neither am I!) and I'm sure many, many readers will feel the same.

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Jun 17, 2017 Marchpane rated it it was amazing

Raw, powerful, heartbreaking. Essential reading for anyone who has a body.

Roxane's experience is hers alone but this book is also incredibly (sadly) relatable. For anyone who has existed in the world knowing that you are not your body, and that you are your body.

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Jan 14, 2016 Julia added it

Dude!!!!!! I've been stalking the release of this book since it was set for June 14, 2016. So the excitement built up as I drove to my local bookstore on Saturday, June 18 stoked to purchase this book which I planned to smash as soon as I got it. I went right to the customer service desk and asked "where is the book Hunger by the incredible Roxane Gay?" The teenager looked confused and typed it in the computer. He, I...we waited....forever. He said "No results were found."

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Jul 05, 2017 Obsidian rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, tbr-2017

Trigger warning: rape

I really don't have much to say besides go and grab this book to read. This is a painfully honest memoir by Gay. At times I felt like she had mailed me a copy of her diary and said enjoy the read. I wanted to look away at times because it was too much. She tap into the voice that lives in all women to a certain extent telling us we are not good enough time and time again.

If you have read Gay's other works, you may know she was a victim of group rape when she was 12. She goes ...more

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Jun 28, 2017 Ashley Brooks rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction

“This is a memoir of (my) body because, more often than not, stories of bodies like mine are ignored or dismissed or derided. People see bodies like mine and make their assumptions. They think they know the why of my body. They do not.”

I don't even know what to say besides you should definitely read this.

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Jun 21, 2017 Adira rated it really liked it

Shelves: kickbutt-heroines, anticipation, thought-provoking, memoirs, books-about-traveling, african-american-literature, coming-of-age, non-fiction, violent-reads, adult-fiction, audiobook, books-set-in-usa, books-about-race, books-about-characters-with-health, autobiography-autobiographical, books-read-in-2017, feminist-reads, scribd-reads, essay-collection, bff-book-club

Roxane Gay poured her heart onto the page with this one and basically dares readers to look away from her pain. (view spoiler) In short, if you're easily made squeamish and/or not one for dealing with messy life events t ...more

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May 02, 2017 Chelsey rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favourites, be-a-force, 2017

I took a deep breath in, exhaled, closed the bound manuscript I had read, held it for a second and then handed it to my coworker. "I haven't felt this much about something in a long time. How am I supposed to write about this?! Roxane has Goodreads! I need the right words." And he said "It stirred you." Thank you, Brandon!
And that is perfect. It stirred me. I don't know if I've ever read something so honest, so raw. Roxane doesn't shy away from how difficult this was for her to write, and it sho ...more

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Apr 23, 2017 xTx xTx rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2017

I cried many times while reading this book and wept after i read the last page. I think that's what happens when you are witness to true honesty and vulnerability and beauty all at once. This book has those things and more. I believe this is Gay's finest work to date.

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Jun 14, 2017 Leah Bayer rated it really liked it

Shelves: rough-reads

This was a rough book for me to read, probably because it hit quite close to home. Like Roxane, I developed an eating disorder as a teenager in a response to trauma (though mine went in the opposite direction). Like Roxane, I inexplicably have no memory of vast swaths of my childhood. Like Roxane, I recoil from physical touch with strangers and spend a lot of time making myself as small as possible in public situations. Like Roxane, I have items of clothing I adore but am scared to wear out of t This was a rough book for me to read, probably because it hit quite close to home. Like Roxane, I developed an eating disorder as a teenager in a response to trauma (though mine went in the opposite direction). Like Roxane, I inexplicably have no memory of vast swaths of my childhood. Like Roxane, I recoil from physical touch with strangers and spend a lot of time making myself as small as possible in public situations. Like Roxane, I have items of clothing I adore but am scared to wear out of the house. We are opposites physically (I am quite short and small) but I felt an almost immediate and intense connection to her in the opening chapters. So for me, parts of this book were a knife to the heart because they rang brutally, honestly true.

The strength of Hunger is in how blatantly honest Roxane is about her life and body. She does not shy away from the rough details, the pain of her day to day life, the struggle to love any part of herself. It is almost never an easy thing to read about. In the last chapter she states that this is the hardest thing she's ever done, and it reads like it. At 12 she was gang raped and the chapters detailing that are searing and vivid. Huge TW if that's an issue for you, obviously, because it forms the core of this memoir. There is, thankfully, not enough detail for it to feel voyeuristic or intentionally upsetting, but even the blurry moments we get are almost too much.

Up until about halfway through this was an easy 5-star for me. The writing is as beautiful and crisp as what you'd expect from Gay. Her writing is so personal and involving, but you know she's holding just a bit of herself back--enough to keep the reader at the distance she likes to keep strangers. I'm not sure if this is intentional or not but it's quite clever. I find memoirs written in a straightforward, matter-of-fact way kind of boring. I want the writing, the mood, to fit the story being told, and Hunger does that with finesse. But by the halfway mark I was actually asking myself, "didn't I read this already?"

Hunger is broken up into almost 90 mini-chapters, flitting from thought to thought. The central narrative moves forward in time from childhood to now, but many of the chapters deal with her personal struggles with her body. But many (and I mean MANY) of them are simply saying the same thing over and over and over. With the same words, even. Repetition of overarching thematic phrases can be done well, but here it is excessive. I think it's because snippets of this are from other things (her tumblr, various online publications) and towards the end it really does feel slapped together. I think this needed some serious editing, because it starts feeling like a slog when you're reading the exact same phrase about the exact same topic over and over and over. It would have been much, much better to condense the similar-sounding chapters together into something a bit longer and more cohesive. I think with a good edit this would easily be 5 stars, but I can't overlook something that large and distracting. ...more

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Jun 24, 2017 Rachel León rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2017, read-in-2017, memoir

I absolutely love Roxane Gay. I love a lot of writers, but there are some for which my feelings exceed adoration or respect, and that's how I feel about Ms. Gay. She's so freaking brilliant and razor sharp and I want to devour everything she writes.

This book is raw and can be difficult to read. But it's important and it's fantastic and, if you're like me, will make you love Roxane Gay even more.

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Jun 25, 2017 Katie rated it it was amazing

Heartbreaking. Roxane Gay has lived quite a life, and so much of it is illustrated with such terrible suffering.

I appreciate that she wrote this memoir with raw and often painful honesty. I love that she put every hateful feeling I have about exercise into words. I'm relieved to know I'm not the only one who says brutal things to myself, but also sad that this is acceptable, and that there is no easy way to change this behavior.

This is a hard memoir to read, and everyone should read it.

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Jun 24, 2017 Britt rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, not-a-fish-that-you-can-catch, messed-up, dear-diary, the-burbs, so-angsty-it-hurts, all-the-tears, audio, based-on-a-true-person, lady-business, minxin, 2017, thats-so-michigan, minoring-in-women-s-studies

Devastating. If the measure of an amazing book is that it helps you learn deeper truths about your self and your world than this is truly an amazing book.

I have to sit down and do some thinking about how I perceive and value bodies.

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May 24, 2017 Cat (cat-thecatlady) rated it it was amazing

wow... I can't even express how amazing this book is.
it's so gut-punching, full of such feeling and so deeply personal. I don't think whatever I can write now (or maybe even after I digest it a bit longer) can do it justice. Gay is an amazing writer and so powerful with words. I don't think I could recommend this more. what an excellent read!

full review here: https://catshelf.wordpress.com/2017/0...

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Apr 20, 2017 Trin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: biography, american-lit, 2010s

I need some time to sit with this before I can write a proper review, but it's amazing: thoughtful, harrowing, and beautifully composed.

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Jun 23, 2017 Jess Johnson rated it it was amazing

Wow, what a great book.

Ironically, it's only through talking in detail about the experiences of her physical self that we come to understand her more fully as mental and spiritual person. There's parts that are hard to read because they feel like the dirty underside we all know is there but are easier to ignore.

At first I struggled with the cyclic nature of how things were broken down sometimes alternating between needing to talk about things and wanting them completely ignored but the further I ...more

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About Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay’s writing has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, West Branch, Virginia Quarterly Review, NOON, The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Rumpus, Salon, The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy culture blog, and many others. She is the co-editor of PANK and essays editor for The ...more

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“What does it say about our culture that the desire for weight loss is considered a default feature of womanhood?” — 11 likes

“In yet another commercial, Oprah somberly says, “Inside every overweight woman is a woman she knows she can be.” This is a popular notion, the idea that the fat among us are carrying a thin woman inside. Each time I see this particular commercial, I think, I ate that thin woman and she was delicious but unsatisfying. And then I think about how fucked up it is to promote this idea that our truest selves are thin women hiding in our fat bodies like imposters, usurpers, illegitimates.” — 6 likes

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