But all the while, she insists on her right to be treated with dignity. Gay examines wells of trauma and horror, not sparing her own self-loathing from her forthright analytic eye. Hunger is an intimate and vulnerable memoir, one that takes its readers into dark and uncomfortable places. Our culture, she concludes, treats fat people with enormous cruelty and disrespect, and hides that cruelty under faux concern for the health of the people in question.
#Hunger roxane gay review professional#
Strangers shout slurs at her professional acquaintances are shocked when they meet her in person because they cannot imagine that a well-respected author might also be fat doctors refuse to treat her for strep throat without first scolding her about her weight. She describes being covered with bruises after being forced to squeeze into a chair with arms when it is too small for her.
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In Hunger, Gay describes sitting in an airplane exit row next to a man who becomes convinced that she is unable to “fulfill the responsibilities” of the exit row because of her size. Her body has the right to exist and to be treated with dignity, and that so often she and her body are not treated with dignity is a profound failing on the part of our society. On the other hand, she holds the very reasonable opinion that her body is not made immoral or dangerous or unclean by the fact of its fatness. “I need to tear down some of the walls, and I need to tear down those walls for me and me alone.” The book is about living in a body that often isnt allowed to fit. “I no longer need the body fortress I built,” she concludes. Hunger is a crushing, exposing, brutal memoir about such a life. She doesn’t like that when she starts to lose weight, she begins to feel unsafe and compulsively eats until the danger has passed. I think I would have enjoyed it just as much in print, but I love love love Roxane Gay’s voice, both her literary voice and her speaking voice, and it enhanced the experience and time I spent with her by listening to her actually tell her story. She treats her fatness as a physical expression of her PTSD, which means it’s not something that she can love and accept about herself unconditionally. I listened to the audio version of this book, read by the author. Gay’s position means she can’t quite conform to either expectation. Feminist women are encouraged to aggressively love their bodies, to understand that one can be healthy at any size and to fight against the culture that teaches women to hate their bodies. Women in general are expected to hate their bodies with a kind of performative smugness, as if the more loudly they announce their loathing of their thighs and their butts and their bellies, the more feminine they will become. There are certain expectations that come with writing about one’s body in public, for women in general and for feminists in particular. (And it also didn't hurt that she talked about writing, a lot!) Gay writes frankly about feminism, body image, the meaning of self-love and getting there on her own terms, as well as a whole life's worth of personal growth.Vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark But Hunger was so honest and so open, about every great and ugly thing that ever happened to Gay. Memoirs are very touch and go with me, because if I feel that the author is not being truthful, that can turn me off and make me hate the book.
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Roxane Gay is a highly successful author and professor at a university in Indiana, but in Hunger, she talks about her childhood, her past and how it formed her into the woman she is today, and I was just awed by the sheer degree of honesty.
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One of my favorite books of 2017, hands down! Gay lays herself bare for the reader, all of her scars and wants and hopes and regrets, welcoming you into her mind. I read this book and came away with a feeling of inspiration and hope I feel like everyone should read this moving, wonderful memoir.
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What I discovered is a deeply honest, painful, and poignant memoir that highlighted the pain of severe trauma, the deep love of family, both blood and not, and resilience of every kind. I've read short fiction and articles by her, and was so stoked to finally get my hands on her work, to gain some personal insight on one of my favorite authors of all time. Roxane Gay has become a household name in the arenas of both fiction and nonfiction, and when I heard that she had a new book coming out, a memoir about her body and her own personal experiences, I was really excited. I borrowed this book through my local library and reviewed it.