Hunger by Roxane GayBook Review
Hi everyone i'm rincey and this is
rincey reads. Today i'm going to be doing a book review on hunger by Roxane gay.
Let me try to hold this so it doesn't glare all over the screen. This is a book
I picked up for nonfiction November and oh man am I glad that I did because it
was great. This is a memoir slash essay collection from Roxane gay.
I've
read almost everything that she's put out. I haven't read difficult women yet
but this just like solidifies in my mind that I just love Roxane gay specifically
as a non-fiction writer. I think that she is just very smart and has a great
insight and just, just is really great at observing the world, observing how people
react to her and she's also just really open and honest. But I should probably
give you a little bit of a synopsis first before I get into completely
raving about this book.
Like I said, it's a memoir slash essay collection. The
subtitle to this is a memoir of my body. So in this book Roxane gay talks
about her own personal just journey with her image, her body, her weight. She talks
very openly and honestly about the way she views food, the way that she handles
food or has handled food in the past.
I will say that this book does deserve a
little bit of a trigger warning. She talks about her assault when she was
younger and how that impacted the way that she views food and eating and the
way that she views her body. But yeah this is just like her own reflection on
herself and her views on her own body as well as the way that other people view
her body and her difficulties in being a larger woman in this society that
doesn't like larger women to put it nicely. Yeah I really, really love this
book a lot.
There were so many times in here where I wanted to take pictures and
post quotes from this book but I felt like if I did it every time I felt like
it I probably would have posted almost the entire book. Yeah Roxane gay is just
really, really smart. And I think she is also, somehow, completely okay with being
completely honest with herself and her life and her points of view in a way
that to me feels very foreign. Like I.
Would never be this open about the way
that I feel about myself. But she is completely willing to be and I
applaud her for that. And also just a lot of the things that she talked about I
feel like are things that I know I. Personally have thought or felt on
various occasions and I'm sure that a lot of other people, especially women,
have thought or felt on various occasions.
Yeah she talks about again
growing up, her childhood, the different decisions that she's made over time. She
doesn't sugarcoat anything. Like she very much admits to her faults and her
problems and she doesn't try to pretend like she's this perfect person. And she
says also towards the beginning of the book that this isn't like an
aspirational or inspirational type of book.
This is just her writing about her
life. There isn't going to be this like ending scene where she's suddenly like
super skinny again and super motivated and motivates all of us to get healthy
and happier. There's no like happy ending here. She continues to struggle and she
continues to fight and she continues to try to figure out how to treat her body
well which I just find really, really refreshing.
The chapters in here are all
really, really short so they kind of feel like vignettes. And personally I really
liked it like that because it's sort of like dipping in and out of her thought
process in different parts of her life. But I know that a lot of other people
felt or might feel that it doesn't go quite deep enough. I will say that
there's nothing in here that's necessarily like revolutionary when it
comes to body image or anything like that.
But again I think it's just her
honesty and her openness in talking about the stuff that really sort of sets
this book apart. There are parts of this book where she talks about the conflict
that she often feels being a feminist and recognizing the way that the world
tells her that her body is supposed to be a specific way but also kind of
wanting her body to fit that specific mold because she knows that it would be
easier and like she wouldn't have to deal with quite as much crap. She talks
about how she knows like what she's supposed to do a lot of time but it's
really hard for her to like convince herself to do those things. Again I feel
like that this is just a book that's just really, really relatable and really
honest.
I don't know if it's just me but I felt like there were just so many
chapters in here where I was just, I felt like Roxane gay was in my own head.
Yeah it was, it was amazing. There's one chapter in here that I kind
of want to read. It's a relatively short chapter.
It's like a page and a half ever
maybe even just like one page. And I feel like it sums up a lot of what this book
is about as well as just like my own personal feelings about this whole topic. It's from chapter 41 and it says, "I hate
myself. OR society tells me I'm supposed to hate myself.
So I guess this
at least is something that I'm doing right. Or I should say I hate my body. I
hate my weakness at being unable to control my body. I hate how I feel in my
body.
I hate how people see my body. I hate how people stare at my body, treat
my body, comment on my body. I hate equating my self-worth with the
state of my body and how difficult it is to overcome this equation. I hate how
hard it is to accept my human frailties.
I hate that I am letting down so many
women when I cannot embrace my body at any size. But I also like myself, my
personality, my weirdness, my sense of humor, my wild and deep romantic streak,
how I love, how I write, my kindness, and my mean streak. It is only now in my 40s
that I am able to admit that I like myself even though I'm nagged by the
suspicion that I shouldn't. For so long I.
Gave in to my self-loathing. I refuse to
allow myself the simple pleasure of accepting who I am and how I live and
love and think and see the world. But then I got older and I cared less about
what other people think. I got older and realized I was exhausted by all my
self-loathing and that I was hating myself in part because I assumed that's
what other people expected for me.
As if my self-hatred was the price I needed to
pay for living in an overweight body. It was much, much easier to just try and
shut out all of the noise and to try to forgive myself for the mistakes I made
in high school, in college, and throughout my 20s, to have some empathy for why I
made those mistakes. I don't want to change who I am. I want to change how I
look.
On my better days when I feel up to the fight, I want to change how this
world responds to how I look because intellectually I know my body is not the
real problem. On bad days, though, I forget how to separate my personality, the heart
of who I am from my body. I forgot how to shield myself from the
cruelties of this world." Man it's good writing in here. So yeah if you haven't
already, I highly recommend picking up this book.
Again a trigger warning
because there is discussions in here about her assault when she was 12 years
old. But also probably trigger warnings if you have issues with like eating disorders and whatnot because she does talk about
her own sort of eating disorders that she's had over the years and the various
ways that she has treated her body poorly. But otherwise I highly, highly
recommend picking this up. I gave this one a four out of five stars.
It's
probably more like four and a half for me. The only reason why it's not a
five-star book is because one, I wanted it to be longer and maybe a little bit
deeper. But that's just me being very picky and just wanting more from Roxane
gay all the time. So.
But yeah I love this book. It's definitely gonna be one of my
favorites of the year. It's probably like up there in my top 5, I would actually
say. So yeah that's everything that I.
Have for you guys. Feel free to leave a
comment down below letting me know if you've read hunger by Roxane gay. Or if
you have any questions about it, definitely leave that down in the
comment section as well. So yeah that's all I have for now and thanks for watching..
rincey reads. Today i'm going to be doing a book review on hunger by Roxane gay.
Let me try to hold this so it doesn't glare all over the screen. This is a book
I picked up for nonfiction November and oh man am I glad that I did because it
was great. This is a memoir slash essay collection from Roxane gay.
I've
read almost everything that she's put out. I haven't read difficult women yet
but this just like solidifies in my mind that I just love Roxane gay specifically
as a non-fiction writer. I think that she is just very smart and has a great
insight and just, just is really great at observing the world, observing how people
react to her and she's also just really open and honest. But I should probably
give you a little bit of a synopsis first before I get into completely
raving about this book.
Like I said, it's a memoir slash essay collection. The
subtitle to this is a memoir of my body. So in this book Roxane gay talks
about her own personal just journey with her image, her body, her weight. She talks
very openly and honestly about the way she views food, the way that she handles
food or has handled food in the past.
I will say that this book does deserve a
little bit of a trigger warning. She talks about her assault when she was
younger and how that impacted the way that she views food and eating and the
way that she views her body. But yeah this is just like her own reflection on
herself and her views on her own body as well as the way that other people view
her body and her difficulties in being a larger woman in this society that
doesn't like larger women to put it nicely. Yeah I really, really love this
book a lot.
There were so many times in here where I wanted to take pictures and
post quotes from this book but I felt like if I did it every time I felt like
it I probably would have posted almost the entire book. Yeah Roxane gay is just
really, really smart. And I think she is also, somehow, completely okay with being
completely honest with herself and her life and her points of view in a way
that to me feels very foreign. Like I.
Would never be this open about the way
that I feel about myself. But she is completely willing to be and I
applaud her for that. And also just a lot of the things that she talked about I
feel like are things that I know I. Personally have thought or felt on
various occasions and I'm sure that a lot of other people, especially women,
have thought or felt on various occasions.
Yeah she talks about again
growing up, her childhood, the different decisions that she's made over time. She
doesn't sugarcoat anything. Like she very much admits to her faults and her
problems and she doesn't try to pretend like she's this perfect person. And she
says also towards the beginning of the book that this isn't like an
aspirational or inspirational type of book.
This is just her writing about her
life. There isn't going to be this like ending scene where she's suddenly like
super skinny again and super motivated and motivates all of us to get healthy
and happier. There's no like happy ending here. She continues to struggle and she
continues to fight and she continues to try to figure out how to treat her body
well which I just find really, really refreshing.
The chapters in here are all
really, really short so they kind of feel like vignettes. And personally I really
liked it like that because it's sort of like dipping in and out of her thought
process in different parts of her life. But I know that a lot of other people
felt or might feel that it doesn't go quite deep enough. I will say that
there's nothing in here that's necessarily like revolutionary when it
comes to body image or anything like that.
But again I think it's just her
honesty and her openness in talking about the stuff that really sort of sets
this book apart. There are parts of this book where she talks about the conflict
that she often feels being a feminist and recognizing the way that the world
tells her that her body is supposed to be a specific way but also kind of
wanting her body to fit that specific mold because she knows that it would be
easier and like she wouldn't have to deal with quite as much crap. She talks
about how she knows like what she's supposed to do a lot of time but it's
really hard for her to like convince herself to do those things. Again I feel
like that this is just a book that's just really, really relatable and really
honest.
I don't know if it's just me but I felt like there were just so many
chapters in here where I was just, I felt like Roxane gay was in my own head.
Yeah it was, it was amazing. There's one chapter in here that I kind
of want to read. It's a relatively short chapter.
It's like a page and a half ever
maybe even just like one page. And I feel like it sums up a lot of what this book
is about as well as just like my own personal feelings about this whole topic. It's from chapter 41 and it says, "I hate
myself. OR society tells me I'm supposed to hate myself.
So I guess this
at least is something that I'm doing right. Or I should say I hate my body. I
hate my weakness at being unable to control my body. I hate how I feel in my
body.
I hate how people see my body. I hate how people stare at my body, treat
my body, comment on my body. I hate equating my self-worth with the
state of my body and how difficult it is to overcome this equation. I hate how
hard it is to accept my human frailties.
I hate that I am letting down so many
women when I cannot embrace my body at any size. But I also like myself, my
personality, my weirdness, my sense of humor, my wild and deep romantic streak,
how I love, how I write, my kindness, and my mean streak. It is only now in my 40s
that I am able to admit that I like myself even though I'm nagged by the
suspicion that I shouldn't. For so long I.
Gave in to my self-loathing. I refuse to
allow myself the simple pleasure of accepting who I am and how I live and
love and think and see the world. But then I got older and I cared less about
what other people think. I got older and realized I was exhausted by all my
self-loathing and that I was hating myself in part because I assumed that's
what other people expected for me.
As if my self-hatred was the price I needed to
pay for living in an overweight body. It was much, much easier to just try and
shut out all of the noise and to try to forgive myself for the mistakes I made
in high school, in college, and throughout my 20s, to have some empathy for why I
made those mistakes. I don't want to change who I am. I want to change how I
look.
On my better days when I feel up to the fight, I want to change how this
world responds to how I look because intellectually I know my body is not the
real problem. On bad days, though, I forget how to separate my personality, the heart
of who I am from my body. I forgot how to shield myself from the
cruelties of this world." Man it's good writing in here. So yeah if you haven't
already, I highly recommend picking up this book.
Again a trigger warning
because there is discussions in here about her assault when she was 12 years
old. But also probably trigger warnings if you have issues with like eating disorders and whatnot because she does talk about
her own sort of eating disorders that she's had over the years and the various
ways that she has treated her body poorly. But otherwise I highly, highly
recommend picking this up. I gave this one a four out of five stars.
It's
probably more like four and a half for me. The only reason why it's not a
five-star book is because one, I wanted it to be longer and maybe a little bit
deeper. But that's just me being very picky and just wanting more from Roxane
gay all the time. So.
But yeah I love this book. It's definitely gonna be one of my
favorites of the year. It's probably like up there in my top 5, I would actually
say. So yeah that's everything that I.
Have for you guys. Feel free to leave a
comment down below letting me know if you've read hunger by Roxane gay. Or if
you have any questions about it, definitely leave that down in the
comment section as well. So yeah that's all I have for now and thanks for watching..
Comments
Post a Comment