I’m a little ashamed to admit that this was my first foray into the work of Roxane Gay. I don’t know how, but I have somehow managed to miss her previously published works – though they all sound like they are exactly my kind of books. I was drawn to this because of the struggles I’ve been having with my own body in the past couple of years – though not the same as her struggles, there are some parallels to be found between bodies that do not allow for being ignored, either because of their size or shape or inability to function quite like “normal.”
This book is one that needs to be prefaced with strong trigger warnings. Probably obvious from any quick perusal of its blurb, but nonetheless necessary to mention. In this book Roxane Gay takes us with her as she opens up deep wounds in her psyche – starting with a brutal sexual assault when she was not yet a teenager, and following on with the various ways in which she was affected by the fallout of this event. Her disordered eating and weight gain is the main topic covered, but in exploring this theme she examines all the various aspects of her experiences and personality that have made her the person she is today, for better and for worse.
I struggle to write a review of this book, because there are two very different aspects that I need to consider, and they are, to me, quite separate.
The first is the content of the book, which is important, necessary, painful, raw and (almost) unflinchingly honest. Roxane Gay explores her own trauma, and the many ways it reverberates through her life to this day. She also discusses her struggles with her weight, how difficult it is to be a very large person, but also how losing weight triggers her trauma, which is just as difficult. She discusses the many day-to-day struggles that accompany her in her passage through the world – seats that can’t support her weight or pinch and bruise her, judgement from those around her (there’s a particularly uncomfortable section about air travel that is so important in gaining perspective), limits she places on her own activities to avoid embarrassment or causing others discomfort. Her life is strewn with these small and large compromises and humiliations that serve to highlight how despite an “obesity epidemic,” our world is still unaccommodating to those who are large. Our culture, and many (if not most) of the people in it cannot see past big bodies to the people within them. And we pass judgement and place blame without knowing anything about the very real, very human people living in the bodies we encounter. We do this based on how large bodies invade our personal space, how uncomfortable they make us feel or justify it with concerns about health. But at the end of the day, there are as many different experiences of being overweight as there are overweight people (which is to say, there are a lot). We owe it to one another – to ourselves – to take a long hard look at our assumptions and biases, and to consider that those assumptions do nothing but harm.
The impact of this book for anyone who has similar experiences to Gay’s – or (possibly even more so) who doesn’t – cannot be overstated. I didn’t necessarily agree with her on everything, but I was glad to hear her. Glad she had the courage to put into words experiences shared by so many people whose voices are ignored and silenced by a society that sees them as less than. It can’t have been easy for her to share her truths – and she shares so many in these pages – and for this I applaud her. So as far as the content goes, this book is absolutely required reading.
The second aspect is how I feel about this book as a text, rather than as content. I found it very easy to read – the prose is not challenging, many of the chapters are short, and it often feels like reading a selection of carefully ordered, interlocking vignettes. I enjoyed the style, and I found it conducive to the stories it tells. My one criticism would be that there was a section somewhere near the middle of the book when it dragged for me, just a little. There is a fair amount of repetition in this book – Gay discusses the same traumas and experiences repeatedly to contextualize them as part of different issues in her life. She also shares more information as she does so, and as a result reading this book feels like witnessing her process of working through her past, speaking her truth, and beginning to both accept herself and heal. Because it’s not a long book and the prose is not dense, it’s not hard to stick with her throughout, despite some sections that feel repetitive or that lag slightly.
There is very little to criticize here. It only took me two days to read this book, and I think I could have read it faster had I not required mental breaks to absorb what I was reading. Roxane Gay has a powerful voice, and I have nothing but respect for her willingness to speak up and demand to be heard. She is well worth listening to. This may have been my first foray into her work, but I can guarantee you it will not be my last.
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 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 own 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. – Goodreads
Book Title: Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
Author: Roxane Gay
Series: No
Edition: Paperback
Published By: Harper
Released: June 13, 2017
Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir
Pages: 320
Date Read: February 12-17, 2018
Rating: 8/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.25/5 (28,077 ratings)