Hunger

A Memoir of (My) Body

By: Roxane Gay

Narrated by: Roxane Gay

Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

From the New York Times best-selling 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 listeners 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.

©2016 Roxane Gay (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

"There's no better person to narrate this audio than Roxane Gay herself. Her calm, consistent inflections are juxtaposed with the content of the audiobook.... Her narration is filled with careful intentions - as if every single word stated and not stated explains her existence spatially.... Most of all, her story is felt because content and narration explore the concept of un/control of the body, self, and existence through her voice." ( AudioFile)

Deeply Touching Memoir

I'm glad I listened to this book for many, many reasons. It was my intro to Roxane Gay and I am so glad she was brought to my attention. Her perspectives have caused me to consider things that had not occurred to me. Other times, I felt she was recording my thoughts- familiar struggles many women share.

This is not a weight loss how to/ journey. It's so much more. I highly recommend this stirring personal account. This contemporary, so very honest writer has a new reader in me.

Powerful and beautiful

The story of Gay's relationship with her body is beautifully told in this book, and her own narration of it makes it feel as if you are having an intimate conversation with her. It is difficult material but important, and powerfully written.

A piece that will make you think.

Although the topic of this book is HER body, it is a story, a memoir, with which almost everyone will find something to identify.

Wow! A very honest and vulnerable book

I was thinking this book would be about Roxanne’s struggle with weight and it was, but it was so much more. Roxanne is very brave to share her story of rape and her honest opinions about her body, the difficulties that come with being a larger person and her most intimate experiences. At times, this book made me very sad. It also made me wonder how many more people have been victims of sexual assault who have remained silent. Excellent book! I wanted to go back in time and help 12 year old Roxanne tell her parents and punish her rapists and comfort her. I hope she will one day forgive her rapists. Forgiving them will free her, I promise that. This book is very deep and real.

Required reading

While listening I thought, “every teenage girl should read this.” Followed immediately by, “no. Every teenage boy should read this.” When men and boys are reading memoirs like this, maybe they will be less necessary and maybe there will be fewer women with these tales and these feelings. Her honesty is profound, her words hard to hear, but her delivery and voice are like an old friend.

Sometimes the truth...

...is funny. More often it is full of pain and rage. Ms Gay tells it like it is and there are many, many moments while listening when I said out loud, “yes, that’s exactly how it is to be a large woman!” And those moments and several chapters soared with courage and brilliance! There was also a point when the litany of her woes and suffering became full of self pity and I wished at those moments she had not done that quite so much because she lost my compassion at those times. But maybe hearing the self pity is also sometimes the truth. Hers is a voice that speaks truth to power. I related to it on many, many levels.

A true revelation in the land of revealing memoirs

Would you consider the audio edition of Hunger to be better than the print version?

Yes. Gay's writing is always wonderfully descriptive and on-point but for this, her most personal tale, having her bring it to life takes it over the edge.

What did you like best about this story?

Gay's willingness to reveal all of the twists, turns, and bumps in her story, exposing not only the trauma that shaped her life for so long but also the spiral-out that followed, is an act of pure bravery. Putting aside that Gay leads a public life, in the real world and on Twitter, where indignities large and small are dealt out daily, her ability to squarely look at her catalyst, motivation, and own actions is a gift that brings us along for an at-times painful, but ultimately uplifting journey. She says at the beginning that hers "is not a story of triumph" because it doesn't end with her many sizes thinner, but it is actually something even more precious: a story of realistic hope. Hope for our ability to not only endure, but to thrive and grow.

What about Roxane Gay’s performance did you like?

Gay maintains an at-times distractingly modulated tone throughout but the warmth and emotion in her voice more than conveyed all you needed to know about her struggles with everything from her weight to her lovers to herself.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I had to pause the book for a day or so during the section when she describes her attack. The pain of it all...the description of the actions, the emotion in her voice... it was too much to bear in one sitting. That was just a hint at how horrible it had to have been for her to have endured.

First time I've heard of author

Really enjoyed. It was difficult to get past the anger she voiced I was glad near end she shared some break through and hope she continues to peel the layers so we can all enjoy and experience her growth in self love, self care and because she is so talented I want her around so I/we can learn, enjoy and experience more of her and her writing .
I think this would be great reading for anyone really and I think it would be a great book for FA, OA , and people exploring bariatric surgery, diets, etc... thank you I'm glad you wrote for YOU and I'm glad you wrote for US!

Incredibly moving memoir

What does Roxane Gay bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Roxane trusts the reader with very difficult time in her life, and you feel personally connected to her. A voice actor would risk inauthenticity and be sensationalizing certain elements of the story.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Roxane's dry humor can make anyone laugh - from clever tweets to clever observations about feminism, racism, classism, and prejudice in general. Her story is very personal and marked with tragedy, which made me cry as well.

I loved it. I get it.

I had never read anything by Roxane Gay, and this was so very good. I could relate to a lot of it. It was moving to hear another person tell the whole, unfiltered truth about her life. It made me take a look at mine. Also -- Most authors shouldn't be narrators, but her voice is soothing and keeps you interested.