Hunger by Roxane Gay

Book Review

Talk about an unforgettable book…

Hunger was the December selection for Megan Rapapone’s bookclub, The Call In, with Literati. While I was familiar with Roxane Gay prior to picking up this book - and have participated in her Literati book club in the past - this is the first book of her’s I’ve read.

TW: Rape, sexual violence, fat phobia, eating disorder, emotional abuse, ableism and more.

Hunger is a deeply personal memoir about the author’s experience living in a body that society deems “problematic.” As a woman who is super morbidly obese (the clinical term), Gay details the trauma and fear that led her to turn to food for solace and protection. At just twelve-years-old, the author was gang rapped by a boy she loved and his friends. After which, she began to eat more and more in order to turn her body into “a safe harbor” one that men would find undesirable rather than “a small, weak vessel that betrayed [her].” At her heaviest, Gay weighted 577 pounds. As the number on her scale increased, so too did her self-loathing - until finally, her body “became a cage of [her] own making.”

I also recently read Emily Ratajkowski book “My Body,” which is a similar examination of the author’s body - albeit on the complete opposite side of the spectrum. It’s interesting to see the similarities between the two books as well as the harsh differences between the way the world views and takes advantage of bodies society deems “perfect” vs. “imperfect.” Unlike Ratajkowski’s book, Hunger not only looks at the author’s experience, but it dives into the larger issues at play in a world that associates thinness with happiness and beauty. It also humanizes the everyday struggles of the morbidly obese… once again, in a world built for thinness. 

This book is absolutely heartbreaking, but also, incredibly informative and moving. It’s impossible to read this book without feeling immense compassion for the author and others like her who have struggle with disordered eating, body image and incessant judgement of a fat phobic society.

If you decide to pick this one up, I encourage you to do so at a time when you’re in the proper headspace, as it’s not an easy read, but it’s a story we need to hear.