Hunger
A Memoir of (my) Body
Book - 2017 | First edition.
New York Times bestseller
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
Lambda Literary Award winner
A best book of 2017: Time NPR People Elle The Washington Post The Los Angeles Times The Chicago Tribune Newsday St. Louis Post-Dispatch PopSugar BookRiot Library Journal Booklist Kirkus Reviews Shelf Awareness
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.
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Opinion
From Library Staff
From Library Staff
"Powerful. Insightful. Haunting. Brave. These words describe the beautiful complexity of a memoir that reflects what it means to “take up space” in a world that prefers our bodies NOT to. The lyrical, raw prose and impactful short essays will leave you satiated and perhaps a bit humbled. A... Read More »
Powerful. Insightful. Haunting. Raw. Brave. All these words describe the beautiful complexity of these essays on what it means to “take up space” in a world that prefers our bodies NOT to do just that. Lovely prose and short impactful essays that will leave you with ...well, food for thought. A m... Read More »
From the critics
Community Activity
Quotes
Add a QuoteI am not a hugger. I never have been and I never will be. I hug my friends, and do so happily, but I am sparing with such affections. A hug means something to me; it is an act of profound intimacy, so I try not to get too promiscuous with it.
I had (and have?) this void, this cavern of loneliness inside me that I have spent my whole life trying to fill. I was willing to do most anything if that boy would ease my loneliness. I wanted to feel like he and I belonged to each other, but each time we were together and then after, I felt quite the opposite. And still, I was drawn to him.
"I’ve been that girl, too big for the clothes in the store, just trying to find something, anything, that fits, while also dealing with the commentary of someone else who means well but can’t help but make pointed, insensitive comments. To be that girl in a clothing store is to be the loneliest girl in the world."
"I was a body, one requiring repair, and there are many of us in this world, living such utterly human bodies.”
It is startling to realize that even Oprah, a woman in her early sixties, a billionaire and one of the most famous women in the world, isn't happy with herself, her body. That is how pervasive damaging cultural messages about unruly bodies are -- that even as we age, no matter what material successes we achieve, we cannot be satisfied or happy unless we are also thin.
This is what 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.
Comment
Add a CommentRoxane Gay lets us into her life through her searingly honest and open writing. A book that is as hard to read as it is to put down. But amid the violence, stumbles and recovery , her voice is heard ... and soars.
Brutal and brutally honest. A truly heartfelt memoir, make sure to have tissues handy.
One of the best memoirs I have read to date. I can hardly think of another author who is willing to get more raw and gritty than Roxane Gay. The writing is excellent and the story is one that needs to be told.
This is the single bravest book I have ever read. I love RGay's fiction and was absolutely stunned by this bold, difficult, honest, account of a life. I bought it and read it when it first came out in 2017. I still recall some passages vividly. I am not sure I respect any other author as much as I respect Roxane Gay. This is required reading as far as I am concerned!
This book was rough. It was amazing and if you are even the barest bit interested in memoirs you will certainly enjoy it. That being said trigger warning on trigger warning on trigger warning. Take your time with it.
Roxane Gay is detailed and personal in this memoir. This book addresses just about every issue that is facing North American culture in that manner to bring the reality forward. I loved it even though it was a difficult read.
For the people who down rated this because it was too personal, I really don't understand what you expected a memoir to be. It's supposed to be uncomfortable, it's supposed to make you squirm and break your heart. It's supposed to be intimate, and personal, in the hopes that even if you don't personally relate, you can at least understand a perspective different from yours.
Yes, the book is a bit repetitive, but it's poetic. It reads exactly like living in the aftermath of trauma, as a victim, feels. It is beautiful, haunting, engaging, funny, sad. It made me look at my body and truly appreciate its abilities and strength for the first time in a very, very long time. We spend so much time, especially as women, hating our bodies and punishing them (and our minds), that connecting so intimately with another woman's hatred of her body was radical, revolutionary, and inspiring.
For people who have experienced trauma and body image issues, this book was a welcome read, like opening up all the wounds we're all desperately trying to hide, putting some salve on them, and remembering the best way to heal is to stop picking at them and learn to live around our hurts.
Some deep wounds here. And not just because of being overweight. The book opens with a seminar attended by the author and her father on bariatric surgery. I do believe it can help some but it's sad to see it sold in a "sales seminar" fashion with hardly any screening. What unfolds after that in the book is a very sad and touching story that I imagine is lived by many.
Roxane Gay shares an intimate look into the way she feels about her body, her experiences of her body, and other people's expectations, suppositions, and protestations of her body. This is a book that makes you fall in love with the author. She has turned me into a fan; I can't wait to read everything else she's written. And I wish we were friends.
Throughout Hunger, Gay's voice maintains a hard balance between insistent and vulnerable. Her self-reflections are raw and relatively unfiltered in a way that autobiographies often aim for, but Gay truly masters. The short chapters and accessible language may disappoint some, but I found that they made for more to-the-point content and for more intensified intimacy, as a reader.
"The older I get, the more I understand that life is generally the pursuit of desires. We want and oh how we want. We hunger." Powerful, intimate memoir by Roxane Gay, who wrote the collection of essays "Bad Feminist" and the novel "An Untamed State."