From Powells.com
Staff Pick
Hunger is the heartbreaking story of one woman's body — a body that is too large, a body that is too brown, a body that is too female. It is the story of a body that is invisible while also being all too visible. It is the story of a body that takes up too much space and yet does not exist. Gay's story is difficult. It is complex. And it stayed with me for weeks after I finished reading it. I cannot recommend this one enough. Recommended By Gary L., Powells.com
In Roxane Gay’s Hunger, she details the horrific abuse that was the catalyst for her weight gain and outlines clearly and painfully what it means to be a woman of size in today’s world. It is both an admission of how her size has kept her safe, and how it has imprisoned her. She perfectly captures the strange mix of visibility and invisibility that she faces as a sizable woman living here and now. Recommended By Mary Jo S., Powells.com
Wow. Hunger was one of my most anticipated books of 2017, and it lived up to all my hopes and more. Roxane Gay's memoir is deeply, deeply personal, and yet I found myself nodding in recognition through whole chapters. Gay's honesty, empathy, and thoughtfulness struck a nerve (or several), and have inspired me to be kinder and more patient, with myself and with others. Thank you, Roxane Gay! Recommended By Melia C, Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
From the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist a searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself.
"I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. I buried the girl I was because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere. . . . I was trapped in my body, one that I barely recognized or understood, but at least I was safe."
In her phenomenally popular essays and long-running Tumblr blog, Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and body, 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 explores her past--including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life--and brings readers along on her journey to understand and ultimately save herself.
With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and power that have made her one of the most admired writers of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to learn to take care of yourself: how to feed your hungers for delicious and satisfying food, a smaller and safer body, and a body that can love and be loved--in a time when the bigger you are, the smaller your world becomes.
Review
“A work of exceptional courage by a writer of exceptional talent.” Shelf Awareness (starred review)
Review
“A gripping book, with vivid details that linger long after its pages stop. . . . Hunger is arresting and candid. 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.” The Atlantic
Review
“It turns out that when a wrenching past is confronted with wisdom and bravery, the outcome can be compassion and enlightenment—both for the reader who has lived through this kind of unimaginable pain, and for the reader who knows nothing of it. Roxane Gay shows us how to be decent to ourselves, and decent to one another. Hunger is an amazing achievement in more ways than I can count.” Ann Patchett
About the Author
Roxane Gay is the author of the novel An Untamed State and the story collection Ayiti. Her work has also appeared in Glamour, Best American Short Stories, and the New York Times Book Review.
Roxane Gay on PowellsBooks.Blog
Hunger is a memoir of a body. Throughout the book I look at the history of my body, from when I was assaulted at twelve years old to the here and now. In particular, I look at how I gained weight and then kept gaining weight, first to protect myself, and then because being big became comfortable and also explore what it means to be fat...
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