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    Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
    Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
    Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
    Audiobook5 hours

    Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

    Written by Roxane Gay

    Narrated by Roxane Gay

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    From the New York Times bestselling 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 readers 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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJun 13, 2017
    ISBN9780062470256
    Author

    Roxane Gay

    Roxane Gay is the author of several bestselling books, including Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, the essay collection Bad Feminist, the novel An Untamed State, the short story collections Difficult Women and Ayiti, and the graphic novel The Sacrifice of Darkness. She is also the author of World of Wakanda, for Marvel, and the editor of Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture and The Selected Works of Audre Lorde. She is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times and has just launched the Audacious Book Club and a newsletter, The Audacity.

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    Reviews for Hunger

    4.5/5

    1,626 ratings109 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Beautifully narrated. Like listening to an old friend.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      “Roxane Gay bares it all, in her book “Hunger” she tells us the story about her body, how she let herself eat alot since she was young to make herself bigger and bigger, to build a fortress, to protect herself from people who might hurt her, because she was hurt really bad as a teenager, she was raped. Human being is always vulnerable to traumas, people responds differently to traumas, what happened in your childhood effects what you become as an adult. Roxane, in this case, grow up into a sad and miserable person, as the world tends to discriminate against over-weight people. But fortunately she has a family that loves her no matter what. This book is written with natural and simple language, its like Roxane let us read her diary, with her darkest secrets in it. One thing that bug, Roxane’s writinh is too repetitious as she keeps telling us some thing over and over again. It could use some editing to make it more focus and cohesive.”

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      Victim or Survivor? Roxanne Gay tells us her story of being victimized and still learning how to persevere. Unfortunately the book was repetitive on thoughts and actions. I kept cheering for the author because I wanted her to have a more "bad ass" attitude towards her circumstances.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Gay's memoir was raw, enlightening, honest, wonderful. this recording breezed by, despite the heavy subject matter.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      E o carte pt suflet, pt conștientizare și pt recunoașterea adevărului fata de propria persoana. M-am regăsit în multe ipostaze trăite de autoare. Recomand din tot sufletul !
    • 5/5
      Even though you don't like hugs, I'm sending you my support and gratitude and love. Thank you and I'm sorry and I do wish you strength and good fortune, Roxane
    • 5/5
      This book was therapeutic, beautiful and also very painful to read. Thank you for writing it Roxane.
    • 5/5
      Some books feel like such an important addition to our culture. This is one of them. We could all learn how to be more aware of how one’s body impacts how they experience the world and how our experiences shape our bodies in both positive and negative ways. I love Roxane Gay for her honesty. I thank her for writing her truth.
    • 5/5
      I love this book. I enjoyed how she told her story. I admire her strength. I hope to write like you one day. I hope to own my truth and share it one day. Roxane thanks for sharing.
      wording and imagery was very easy and simple to follow. The storyline was relatable and the speed and tone follow easily. there are so many topics of connection that can be drawn on and discuss in this book. this will be good for persons of all ages and stages to read.
    • 4/5
      Uma leitura muito impactante e dura. Mostra a realidade crua de uma mulher que sempre sofreu perante a sociedade e em relação ao seu próprio corpo. Com este livro percebemos (ainda mais) o que uma experiência traumática pode fazer a alguém e o quanto pode influenciar a sua vida.
      Gostei como dá para refletir sobre que, o que é fácil e cómodo para uma pessoa magra, não o é para uma pessoa gorda.
      O único problema foi que não me consegui sentir 100% conectada com a autora. Para mim, isso é um problema no que toca a não-ficção.
    • 5/5
      Her story. Her truth. I felt and still feel an overwhelming sadness for her. While she has attained great success despite her trauma, she will never know what else could have been had her 12 year old self never been violated...and in the worst way. Her story further emphasizes how trauma, if not properly dealt with, impacts every aspect of your life. Wishing her a full healing.
    • 5/5
      Really eye opening. I admire Gay a lot for sharing such a raw, painful personal story. It also surprised me to see how much we had in common—I picked up this book to learn about other perspectives, but I realized we both experience unruly, although different, manifestations of trauma.
    • 5/5
      The book shows many aspects of life in big body. The way we are seen, described, viewed and judged. Living with trauma is a never ending story, but I keep my fingers crossed for Roxane. And I do understand her perfectly.
    • 5/5
      lovely and real!
      no fluff just truth spoken very well!
    • 5/5
      Thank you for sharing your story. Too many people in this world hide the very trauma you suffered as well and I hope that this book helps young women and men speak up about what happened to them so that their aggressors are brought to justice. Job well done.
    • 5/5
      Truly such a special book. Even though my life looks very different from the author’s, I feel like I understand myself more and how I move through the world. Heading Roxane Gay read the memoir was also so special. She does a fantastic job.
    • 5/5
      A beautiful telling of trauma and the lasting hurt that lingers. It provided so many insights into societal norms and judgements. I loved the humanity Gay portrayed. Magnificent writing.
    • 5/5
      A valuable journey involving weight and race and rape and trauma and the impact all these truths have on people.
    • 5/5
      Amazing, authentic, and unapologetically written and read! A must read.
    • 5/5
      Amazing. This book changed my life. Thanks Roxane Gay. <3
    • 5/5
      Thank you, Roxane, for sharing your story with the world.
    • 5/5
      Read this, whatever your own bodystory is. You will learn so much and feel so much.
    • 5/5
      your leap of faith was worth it and will change lives.

    • 5/5
      This books hurts so good. Thank you Roxane for sharing your story & truth. ??✨?
    • 5/5
      “Mine is not a success story. Mine is, simply, a true story.”

      TW: Rape, fat-phobia, eating disorders.

      Re-read this gem of a book for a book club in one sitting! Can’t remember the last time I finished a book in a day. I am always skeptical of re-reading my favourite books because I am never sure if my first impression of it will hold, but this one does not disappoint. Roxane Gay begins with a disclaimer that sets the tone for the rest of the book. It’s the raw honesty of how she has felt about her body and how others have made her feel about her body over the years is what I absolutely loved about it.

      How do you survive the trauma of being raped at 12? Roxane walks us through the journey of a ‘victim’, as she prefers calling herself and not a survivor, and how she sought comfort in food by means of making her body undesirable. It is chilling to imagine the lengths she went to to transform her body into something that, for her, meant safety but for the world it did not fit conform to the conventional norms of what female bodies must look like.

      Roxane talks about her relationship with her body, and how others have treated her because of how she appears and the struggles she has faced and still does in public. The lack of respect people have when it comes to personal space and the idea that they know better. At one point she talks about how people have been made her uncomfortable/miserable in planes because she takes up more space, if you ask me, what fantabulous luck would I have to be seated next to Roxane Gay, imagine the conversation!

      There is so much to talk about in the book but I’ll say this: It’s an incredibly beautiful, powerful, heartbreaking and a brave piece of writing. Hunger is a stunning memoir, read it!
    • 5/5
      What an incredible story of resistance and daring to exist in a body that to hear her tell it, other people find repulsive. But it is interesting to learn the story behind that body. To learn whom and what Roxane was protecting herself from. A question that the people who judge her never seem to bother to ask. But it is a question that she answered in this wonderful memoir.
    • 5/5
      Beautiful and heart breaking and so very familiar. I'm glad that I decided to read this one. She is a phenomenal writer and now I know more about why.
    • 5/5
      Such a powerful memoir that I will never forget. So grateful that Roxane shared her truth and power with us all. And makes me feel less lonely in my struggle as a survivor of sexual violence to explain to people the complicated truths behind why I feel the way I feel.
    • 5/5
      This was so important an eye-opening. I am stunned and shocked by that honest voice and style of writing. Incredible
    • 5/5
      The rawness and vulnerability Gay displays is painful, touching and vital. I feel seen and moved.