Hunger
Ratings101
Average rating4.2
I loved this book and tore through it in 3 days. Just really captivating, honest, raw writing. Roxane Gay is irrevocably shaped by her trauma, and we wish it had never happened, but it did and she is and that also might be OK. It made me feel better about the way I live with the trauma I experienced as a teenager, which similarly shaped me and sent me trying to protect myself in destructive ways but also makes me, me. I loved it
“For years at a time, there was me, and the woman I saw myself as while living in my head, and the woman who had to carry around my overweight body. They were not the same person. They couldn't be, or I wouldn't have survived any of it.”
reading this memoir involved me confronting things about myself that i love to ignore which is extremely unpleasant but it is also extremely cathartic to relate so wholly to someone. i have never seen bodies talked about in such an explicit, honest way before. it is scary. it made me feel infinitely less alone. roxane gay is very brave, putting to words things i fear even telling my own diaries out of embarrassment and shame, let alone hundreds of thousands of people. i finished this book this morning and promptly cried for about twenty minutes and then sat and ruminated over it all for the rest of the day before i felt able to review this book but i'm glad i read it
As someone that weighs far more than she should ... I had a hard time getting through this book. I wish Gay would just own some of her own crap. And maybe I'm fooling myself, but I don't think that other people are looking at me and judging me as much as I am them.
5 stars Powerful memoir. I'll definitely be getting my own copy to reread and tab.
Hunger is an extremely raw memoir with many passages that have stuck with me almost a year later. I probably think of this book weekly, at the very least, if not more often than that. Gay is incredibly honest and straightforward. She doesn't shy away from any uncomfortable fact.
Speaking of comfort... it's incredibly uncomfortable to rate a book like this. I think the subject matter is very important. I think anyone who has never carried extra weight needs to read this book. There are things you would never consider that are on the minds of fat people every moment of every day. To rate the topic is wrong, in my opinion. I'm rating the organization and writing. While I think it was good, I think people will find it a little bit repetitive and maybe start to glaze over the importance of the message after a while. That being said, I have no idea how to improve it. I think it was great and powerful.
Raw and uncensored. A fine writer. I can't give this a rating because it is a personal account of someone's life and emotions, but I feel as though I have discovered an important and interesting new voice.
“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.”
It's definitely not a piece of writing that's left me cold. I have to mention that I can't quite stomach some things that Roxanne Gay says at certain points in this memoir, she is very angry about many things and lashes out by being very unfair and judgmental towards many people (I'm not talking about those who gave wronged her, I mean people who have literally nothing to do with what happened to her and who's biggest crime is to weigh less and not have had her traumatic experiences). Nonetheless this is not about my feelings, it's about hers and I can sympathize with what she's been and still going through and I can understand her anger and why she would find it hard to believe that most people are not horrible. I can respect her perspective, which is raw and disheartening but equally honest and important to hear.
[TW: Brief mention of rape.] Wow, this book was painful to read. I mean that in a good way. This memoir is amazing. I've never read anything like it. I connected to it so strongly, and yet I didn't because I don't have the same experiences as Gay, but still I did connect to it because of her raw honesty. That's what this book is: raw honesty. And because of that, it's incredibly powerful. Many chapters made me have to stop and take a breather. Gay has such a strong voice. I love this book, but it was painful. I think there's the misconception out there that this book really focuses on being a fat woman in the world. Yes, that is a factor. But if there were a title and a subtitle, being a fat woman in the world would be the subtitle. The title would be her rape when she was twelve. That event changed the course of her life. In the book, she says she ate food, making herself fat, to try to protect her body. I have not had this experience. I am a fat woman, but I have been fat as long as I can remember. I am just built this way. It wasn't a conscious choice. In a way, it may not have been a conscious choice for Gay either. No matter what, we are similar in that we are fat women trying to move through the world. In the chapters that focus on her experiences as a fat woman trying to move through the world, I could really agree with what she was saying and feel a connection to her. That means something to me. It also means something to me that she is willing to be so open and honest and raw with her truth and her pain. We don't have to have shared experiences for me to sympathize and empathize and see some of myself in what she has gone through. I loved this book, but it's not enjoyable. I also fear what some critics might say. I fear they won't understand, or they will purposefully not want to understand. But I'm happy this book exists.
An astonishing and humbling book. I hope I remember to view and treat myself, and others, with more kindness and compassion.
I've known the snippets of her story she's shared in her essays and in Bad Feminist, but I'm glad she gave voice to her full story about her day to day struggles and the history/mental states that got her here. Despite not having such an unruly body, I've always believed it to be, and shared exact understanding and empathy around the many mind-traps she described. This book will help people, both those that understand and those that need to.
Like a deeply intimate conversation where I listened to Roxane Gay tell her story, it was hard to read and impossible to put down. There is no big-picture analysis, no pulling away from a narrative that is arresting and so moving.
Stopped reading this book at 2/3 of the way. Wanted to try it because Ann Patchett said it was heartbreaking. I disagree. While I understand that compulsive eating or not eating can be a way to cope with severe mental trauma - and feel for people who have to go through this, I found the book intolerably shallow. It only describes, it does not analyze or teach or help.
The authors opinions are never surprising. Her writing lacks wit and depth. I don't understand why she is so well known for her writing.
So much yes.
I find Roxane Gay's writing to be comforting no matter what the topic, but here I was saddened and angered by what she has endured and kept hidden. I want to be her friend and help somehow. Weird, I know. There was so much pain here, but she tackles everything head on. She doesn't allow herself to hide behind anything and oh my how brave she is to release all those demons all in one book.
Hard and painful and funny and relatable and true and honest and real. Read it.
This book was so beautiful and so difficult to read–her writing is so vulnerable and brave. It's both deeply personal about Roxane's own experiences but also speaks to broader truths about the way fatness and fat bodies are perceived and treated in American society. I highly recommend it but also caution that it is difficult to read.