I like how Gay, in a world that adores happy endings and experiences neatly dissected for meaning, “went there,” showing the pain and frustrations she continues to endure. Here I am showing you the ferocity of my hunger.” I admire this stance. The tension is the push and pull between strength and vulnerability, courage and fear, reality and illusion, knowledge and confusion. The book speaks louder than anything I could say on the subject.“I don’t know how I let things get so out of control, but I do.” These words, repeated a few times in Roxane Gay’s memoir, hold the tension of this important work. But Gay’s book feels like a bid to take up space, and it works. Our society tells women to be thin and quiet, to not take up to much space. We don’t think about how we focus on being thin and how women are forced into the thin model. Society glosses over women’s weight and the reasons behind it. She has written a book that is shocking and needed. Roxane Gay has written a book that portrays more than a struggle with weight and relationships. She talks about her relationships she had before she began writing the book, the man she met playing poker while she finished her masters, the man in Arizona that she spent a year with, and the others.
She remembers one summer where she went home and drank chalky milkshakes to lose weight.
She recalls how she spent all her money at the greasy spoon and then would go home over the summer and diet to ease her family’s worry. Her weight gain didn’t start until she went to high school at a boarding school. She was bullied and called names until she moved with her family. When the boy went back to school, he told about it but making her out to be the bad person. But the kids at school were not so easy to hide it from. She recounts that she kept this secret from her family, not telling them until years later. She was naïve and didn’t know how badly men could hurt a woman, she writes. This boy who she calls Christopher takes her out to the woods and it is there with his friends that the gang rape happens. She wrote about being gang-raped at 12 by a boy she loved. Please take care of yourself and stop reading if you need to. Next, I’m going to be talking about rape, and I know that can be triggering for some. People see bodies like mine and make their assumptions. “This is a memoir of (my) body because, more often than not, stories of bodies like mine are ignored or dismissed or derided. She writes about struggling with her weight, the concern her family had, and how her relationship with food evolved. So, she pushed herself until her legs were weak. Gay writes about pushing herself on a stationary bike at the gym because she felt, she was being judged by a woman on a different bike. She writes of a personal trainer she has, who tells her of his diet, and she wonders if he knows about spices. She talks openly about her relationship with her body and how it is has changed and evolved as she has aged. Gay talks about her past with humor in some parts and a sobering reality in others. I enjoyed this book the sincerity that Gay writes with is refreshing and oddly comfortable. She writes about her truth, which is combined with her feminism, and it doesn’t feel like reading a textbook. She writes from a sincere place, and it shows in her work. I will always have a special place in my heart for her, and I am always excited when I get to read something she wrote. Hunger is one of Gay’s latest books, and it looks deeper into her past, her struggle with her weight, and the event that changed her life. I meant that quite literally,” Roxane Gay.īad Feminist was the first time I had ever heard of Roxane Gay and I am glad it was not the last time. “I often say that reading and writing saved my life. Roxane Gay standing in between some chairs.