This is the very least we owe our fellow humans – a safe place to speak and be heard and then supported and helped.Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (also rec’d by Noname) “Satrapi grew up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution and its aftermath Persepolis is the story of her childhood. Gay’s vulnerability also demands that we pay attention to survivors of violence and/or rape so that we can give them a safe place to step forward so they don’t have to live a life mired in shame and guilt.

It challenges us to reevaluate what we accept at “normal” in society and demands that we do better for the young girls that are growing up to be the next generation of women. It’s disheartening, and as a mother, it enrages me.īooks like Hunger continue to keep the body image conversations in the forefront of people’s minds. Images in magazines and on billboards seem to only feature women that are too thin – hip and collar bones that stick out, hollowed cheeks, and legs that look more like arms. Our society’s beauty standards when it comes to a woman’s ideal body are not only unhealthy, but often times, unrealistic as well. But while she tried to do everything she could to survive with her pain, society was doing everything it could to make her feel shame instead. Even at that young age, I understood that to be fat was to be undesirable to men, to be beneath their contempt, and I already knew too much about their contempt.Įating was Gay’s attempt at self-preservation. I ate because I thought that if my body became repulsive, I could keep men away. Instead, she turned to food to bury her pain, and also to change the way she looked – to become unattractive to men.

Afterwards, she never told anyone what happened – not her parents, siblings, or friends. Gay was horrifically gang raped in the woods near her home when she was just twelve years old. This book isn’t a pity party in any way however, it does lend a more personal account to the issues behind obesity. Roxane Gay is open, honest, and vulnerable in a way that demands to be heard. What makes Hunger (read Goodread synopsis here) so important is the way it furthers the conversation surrounding obesity, body positivity, and our society’s expectations when it comes to what a woman’s body should look like.

This is not a story of triumph, but this is a story that demands to be told and deserves to be told.

People see bodies like mine and make their assumptions. This is a memoir of (my) body because, more often than not, stories of bodies like mine are ignored or dismissed or derided. These are the ugliest, weakest, barest parts of me.

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