I was trapped in my body, one that I barely recognized or understood, but at least I was safe.' I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere. I buried the girl I was because she ran into all kinds of trouble. She makes herself vulnerable and it’s refreshing.'I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. But she also confronts more difficult issues of race, sexual assault, body image, and the immigrant experience. She is by turns provocative, chilling, hilarious she is also required reading.” - People
“Roxane Gay is the brilliant girl-next-door: your best friend and your sharpest critic. Praise for Bad Feminist:“A strikingly fresh cultural critic.” - Ron Charles, Washington Post “A work of exceptional courage by a writer of exceptional talent.” - Shelf Awareness (starred review)
essential reading.” - Library Journal (starred review)
“Displays bravery, resilience, and naked honesty from the first to last page. An intense, unsparingly honest portrait of childhood crisis and its enduring aftermath.” - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “A heart-rending debut memoir from the outspoken feminist and essayist. Gay denies that hers is a story of “triumph,” but readers will be hard pressed to find a better word.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review) “This raw and graceful memoir digs deeply into what it means to be comfortable in one’s body. Gay is one of our most vital essayists and critics.” - Minneapolis Star Tribune “It is a deeply honest witness, often heartbreaking, and always breathtaking. a memoir that’s so brave, so raw, it feels as if ’s entrusting you with her soul.” - Seattle Times Anyone familiar with Gay’s books or tweets knows she also wields a dagger-sharp wit.” - Boston Globe “ Hunger is Gay at her most lacerating and probing. Gay says hers is not a success story because it’s not the weight-loss story our culture demands, but her breaking of her own silence, her movement from shame and self-loathing toward honoring and forgiving and caring for herself, is in itself a profound victory.” - San Francisco Chronicle We all need to hear what Gay has to say in these pages. Anyone who has a body should read this book.” - Isaac Fitzgerald on the TODAY Show Repetitive and recursive, it propels the reader forward with unstoppable force.” - Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers Gay has a vivid, telegraphic writing style, which serves her well. It is a thing of raw beauty.” - USA Today “Her spare prose, written with a raw grace, heightens the emotional resonance of her story, making each observation sharper, each revelation more riveting. intellectually rigorous and deeply moving.” - The New York Times Book Review There is an incantatory element of repetition to “Hunger”: The very short chapters scallop over the reader like waves.” - Newsday Nothing seems gratuitous a lot seems brave. “Hunger,” like Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me,” interrogates the fortunes of black bodies in public spaces. We are all better for having you do so in the same ferociously honest fashion that you have written this book.” - Los Angeles Times And on nearly every page, Gay’s raw, powerful prose plants a flag, facing down decades of shame and self-loathing by reclaiming the body she never should have had to lose.” - Entertainment Weekly “The book’s short, sharp chapters come alive in vivid personal anecdotes. At its best, it affords women, in particular, something so many other accounts deny them-the right to take up space they are entitled to, and to define what that means.” - Atlantic
“A gripping book, with vivid details that linger long after its pages stop. 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.įreshman Common Read: California State University: Channel Islands Critical Praise 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. 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. 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. 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.