Review: Hunger by Roxane Gay

Raw and intimate, Hunger is Roxane Gay's memoir about her body. 

It is also, quite honestly, heartbreaking. 

Hunger deals with a number of dark subjects, from the shocking and violent way the author was betrayed by her so-called boyfriend and his friends when she was just twelve years old, to food and its relationship with trauma, to the way those who are obese, morbidly obese or super morbidly obese are often treated differently. The author also looks at the way her race and gender may have caused her to be treated differently, and her journey toward self-acceptance.

Roxane Gay's storytelling is very personal, and the memoir works better for it.

Hunger is very difficult for me to sum up accurately. So I'll say this. Even when the many truths and realities presented made me feel uncomfortable, I found the memoir to be very compelling. It made me take a long hard look at notions of body positivity, and what that truly means. In the case of Roxane Gay, self-acceptance is hard won, but it doesn't mean just giving up on her body and allowing herself to be unhealthy. It means--and this is true for all of us--that weight isn't the only thing that makes up a person's identity. 

Recommended.

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