Hayley Scrivenor reviews Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
By Roxane Gay
ISBN: 978-1-4721-5111-7
Review by HAYLEY SCRIVENOR
Roxane’s Gay’s Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body is an obsessive book in many ways. It’s an obsessiveness that characterises the relationship that I, and many women I know, have with our bodies. It’s also an obsessiveness familiar to anyone who has been stuck on a past trauma or who can’t stop thinking about someone who has hurt them. The memoir centres on Gay’s body. She notes that her BMI places her in the ‘super morbidly obese’ range (9). Gay tells us early on that this will not be a book about weight loss. Hers, she warns, ‘is not a story of triumph… this is not a book that will offer motivation’ (2).