Roxane gay hunger discussion topics
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She’d first developed a crush on this boy because he reminded her of a character from the Sweet Valley High series she devoured.
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At age 12, she was gang-raped in the woods by a boy she liked, who had brought along a posse of friends to hold her down and take turns with her. Her weight is the sum of her traumatic past. It’s simply “the story of my body…not a story of triumph.” She says this in the stripped-down prose that conveys the excruciating difficulty required to extract and display the truths that reside in that body. She puts a number to it: In her late 20s, at 6 feet 3 inches tall, she was 577 pounds, though now she is a few hundred pounds less.Īs she warns us early in the book, this is not a success story, nor the text equivalent of those grainy before and after photos where a skinny person poses in one leg of their former fat pants. That’s because there’s an urgency to Hunger just as there is to hunger: Gay is compelled to help readers understand and feel what it’s like to be “caged” (her word) in a body that’s “super morbidly obese” (her doctor’s words). That same night, I gave the book to someone who needed it-they didn’t know they needed it, not yet-and bought a second copy. Have you ever thought about your weight? Have you ever thought about someone else’s weight? Are you a human being who comes into contact with other human beings? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you should read this book. When I turned the last page of Roxane Gay’s new memoir, Hunger, I took a picture of the cover and posted this to Facebook: Anyone familiar with Gay’s books or tweets knows she also wields a dagger-sharp wit.By Alison Buckholtz (author, Navy spouse) Hunger is Gay at her most lacerating and probing. Gay says hers is not a success story because it’s not the weight-loss story our culture demands, but her breaking of her own silence, her movement from shame and self-loathing toward honoring and forgiving and caring for herself, is in itself a profound victory. We all need to hear what Gay has to say in these pages. We are all better for having you do so in the same ferociously honest fashion that you have written this book. Her spare prose, written with a raw grace, heightens the emotional resonance of her story, making each observation sharper, each revelation more riveting. And on nearly every page, Gay’s raw, powerful prose plants a flag, facing down decades of shame and self-loathing by reclaiming the body she never should have had to lose.
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The book’s short, sharp chapters come alive in vivid personal anecdotes. The result is a generous and empathic consideration of what it’s like to be someone else: in itself something of a miracle. In 88 short, lucid chapters, Gay powerfully takes readers through realities that pain her, vex her, guide her, and inform her work. It’s hard to imagine this electrifying book being more personal, candid, or confessional. Kirkus Reviews (starred review)ĭisplays bravery, resilience, and naked honesty from the first to last page.
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An intense, unsparingly honest portrait of childhood crisis and its enduring aftermath. Publishers Weekly (starred review)Ī heart-rending debut memoir from the outspoken feminist and essayist. Gay denies that hers is a story of “triumph,” but readers will be hard pressed to find a better word. This raw and graceful memoir digs deeply into what it means to be comfortable in one’s body. Gay turns to memoir in this powerful reflection on her childhood traumas…Timely and resonant, you can be sure that Hunger will touch a nerve, as so much of Roxane Gay’s writing does. a memoir that’s so brave, so raw, it feels as if ’s entrusting you with her soul Seattle Times At its most symphonic, it’s an intellectually rigorous and deeply moving exploration of the ways in which trauma, stories, desire, language and metaphor shape our experiences and construct our reality. Ann Patchett, Commonwealth and Bel CantoĪt its simplest, it’s a memoir about being fat - Gay’s preferred term - in a hostile, fat-phobic world. HUNGER is an amazing achievement in more ways than I can count.
#Roxane gay hunger discussion topics how to
Roxane Gay shows us how to be decent to ourselves, and decent to one another. 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.