She describes herself as unworthy of love and affection, what happened to her at 12 robbed her of her self-worth. In the second half, she eats to make herself bigger and to protect herself. When she was 12 years old, she was gang raped in the woods and she writes that this was the first half of her life. I always wished I could be as confident and strong as women like Roxane Gay, women who seemed far too intelligent and fulfilled to worry about superficial things like bodies but this book makes it evident that like many of us, Gay has spent a lot time obsessing over her body.
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Watching her interviews and seeing her tweets, I thought she was impermeable. The first thing that struck me about Hunger is how open, honest and vulnerable Gay’s writing is. Many people simply eat because they want to, eat because they need to or both. It was not until last year that I realised that not everyone thought obsessively about the food they ate. As a person who has struggled with food, I’m always fascinated by women who have a relationship, whether good or bad, with food. When I saw Hunger in a bookshop, I knew I had to not only buy it but read it before the summer was over. I say I’m ashamed because I feel that by now, I really should have read Bad Feminist but with an ever-growing reading list and my book-buying habit, I seldom read all the books I intend on reading. I’m ashamed to admit that Hunger is the first book by Roxane Gay that I’ve read.
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This is a book about learning, however slowly, to allow myself to be seen and understood. This is a book about my body, about my hunger, and ultimately, this is a book about disappearing and being lost and wanting so very much, wanting to be seen and understood.