Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

"I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe... I was trapped in my body, one that I barely recognized or understood, but at least I was safe," writes Roxane Gay in this bracingly candid and vulnerable memoir. With extreme intimacy and sensitivity, the bestselling author uses her own emotional and psychological struggles to explore shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. Casting a critical eye on her childhood, teens, and twenties—including a devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life—Gay brings readers into the present realities, pains, and joys of her daily life as a woman navigating a society where the bigger you are, the less you are truly seen.

Master a heartbreakingly honest exploration of the tension between desire and denial, self-comfort and self-care, in a world obsessed with policing bodies. Readers will navigate the complex psychological aftermath of trauma and the defensive walls built by physical transformation, gaining deep insight into what it truly means to inhabit a body that feels "wildly undisciplined" while learning to confront the systemic biases surrounding weight, visibility, and human dignity.