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  • Hunger

  • A Memoir of (My) Body
  • By: Roxane Gay
  • Narrated by: Roxane Gay
  • Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (275 ratings)

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Hunger

By: Roxane Gay
Narrated by: Roxane Gay
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Publisher's Summary

'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.'

New York Times best-selling author Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, 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 casts an insightful and critical eye on her childhood, teens, and 20s - including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life - and brings listeners into the present and the realities, pains, and joys of her daily life.

With the bracing candour, vulnerability and authority that have made her one of the most admired voices of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to be overweight in a time when the bigger you are, the less you are seen. Hunger is a deeply personal memoir from one of our finest writers and tells a story that hasn't yet been told but needs to be.

©2017 Roxane Gay (P)2017 Little Brown Book Group

What listeners say about Hunger

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THANK YOU

Thank you so so much Raxane Gay for saying what needed to be said not just for yourself but for and to society at large. NOT just women.

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4 people found this helpful

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Beautiful and heart wrenching

I really love Roxane Gay’s work But this was her being vulnerable and while it was hard to hear so many of these things it’s important to have voices like hers. I loved this book, I thought it was insightful and poignant and heartbreaking to hear. It made me sad, it made me angry, it made me laugh, it made me feel seen.

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2 people found this helpful

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Fabulous!

I loved this brilliant narrative. I finished it in a day and a half. The author has some really interesting ideas about women and their relationships with their bodies. She opened my eyes to new perspectives about weight and body image.

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2 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars

Not your average read.

My own history with the issues covered in this great read caused me to have to stop and reflect at times on my own journey of acceptance and recovery. This book took longer than normal to read because of this fact. It's worth spending the time thinking about the words, Roxane's journey and if this resonates with the reader, then my advice is to stop and reflect.
This book was not a story as such, but more of a collection of little stories made into a book. It is deeply personal and had many meanings to me. It's the first time as a larger women moving through the world that I've ever heard someone write/say what I'd always been thinking.
What this memoir really did for me, was show that one life event for a person can change their direction and life course forever! I knew this, but I always thought that it was often many traumatic events that lead to this kind of fundamental change in a person's trajectory in life. It's not, and as a community services worker, this is so important to realise.
Thank you Roxane for having the courage to be open enough for us who cannot speak our truths yet, to explore the possibilities of speaking our truths.

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2 people found this helpful

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A Must Read

A raw and unflinching memoir of what it is like to be a victim of violence and woman of size in a world that is not made to accommodate. Gay is a wonderfully courageous writer and is always such a pleasure to listen to. Highly recommended.

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Melancholic

While the Author’s story is highly relatable and brutally honest the whole tone of the book is very melancholic and feels self indulgent. Congrats to the author for her courage.

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1 person found this helpful

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  • Gee
  • 19-07-2019

glad I read it but it was really difficult to do.

this is real and the ideas are processed eloquently. I relate to it and for me it felt like work, a sort of therapy to face these ideas. so it is an important book but not a fun book.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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I want to like it

I really wanted to like this book, and I did to an extent... but it was just missing something. It was an incredible story and my heart panged for Roxanne many times. However, the story jumped around a lot which became confusing at times. At times I felt that she had already told the whole
story and was just jumping around adding different parts here and there. Overall I still liked it and would recommend it for its raw and thought prompting story despite having some issues with it.

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Very enjoyable

Loved hearing Roxane tell her stories (at times painful) with her usual warmth. Thank you.

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Just amazing

I really loved this one. The story is so touchy and being a memoir makes me get even more involved. I like the story telling, subtle sentences and honesty I found in that. Listening it from Roxane’s beautiful voice, gives it a soul. Thanks Roxane.

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