Welcome to my review of Hunger by Roxane Gay. I have never heard of Roxane Gay before but her book, Hunger, spoke to me from the shelves and turned out to be an interesting read.
‘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.’
New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, 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 casts an insightful and critical eye on her childhood, teens, and twenties-including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life-and brings readers into the present and the realities, pains, and joys of her daily life.
With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and authority that have made her one of the most admired voices of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to be overweight in a time when the bigger you are, the less you are seen. Hunger is a deeply personal memoir from one of our finest writers, and tells a story that hasn’t yet been told but needs to be.
Roxane Gay’s writing appears in Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, Harper’s Bazaar, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many others. She is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. She is the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, the New York Times bestselling Bad Feminist, the nationally bestselling Difficult Women and New York Times bestselling Hunger: A Memoir of My Body. She is also the author of World of Wakanda for Marvel.
This is a memoir of her life detailing the struggles with her body. After a terrifying experience in her teenage years, she ate as a form of protection (which is probably more common than you think!) which led to a lifetime of obesity that has become her identifier.
Roxane Gray is incredibly brave to share these experiences in her book in a natural and honest way. She leaves no opportunity to judge her choices with her frank manner. After hearing her experiences and understanding why she is overweight, you wouldn’t want to.
Hunger makes you examine how you view yourself and those around you who may be overweight. Gay makes you feel a little uncomfortable while reading and makes you want to re-evaluate how to react to others. As someone who has been overweight my whole adulthood, I could easily relate to some of her experiences. The nasty looks or looks of pity can be pretty scathing.
The descriptions of life as an obese person are excellent, describing the daily pains and the effort it can take to do simple everyday tasks such as sitting on chairs. It depicts the fear that can be felt in new or uncomfortable situations, including the fear of sitting on the wrong chair and anxiety in case it breaks. In honesty, I haven’t had these issues to this extent, but you can feel how this would change the larger you are. The looks and stares of others make your anxiety grow. Sometimes, the huffing and puffing of those smaller people who don’t understand or just think you are glutenous rather than having what is essentially a mental health issue.
Not everyone has a mental health issue when they are overweight, but many do. It made me wonder whether those people would even be able to lose weight effectively and maintain that without some form of therapy. It’s definitely a crouch for many people, and this book just helps to inform others of that.
This documents Roxane Gray’s journey to find peace with herself and the world, and she truly deserves that.
I enjoyed this book and would recommend it. This story demands to be told and deserves to be read.
| Title | Hunger |
| Author | Roxane Gay |
| Series | N/A |
| Format | Kindle |
| Page Count | 224 Pages |
| Genre | Eating Disorders Biography |
| Publisher | Corsair |
| Release Date | 13th June 2017 |
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