Covering a wide range of topics and experiences, from an exploration of the rape epidemic embedded in the refugee crisis to first-person accounts of child molestation, this collection is often deeply personal and is always unflinchingly honest. Contributions include essays from established and up-andcoming writers, performers, and critics, including actors Ally Sheedy and Gabrielle Union and writers Amy Jo Burns, Lyz Lenz, Claire Schwartz, and Bob Shacochis. she is also required reading.â€â€”PeopleIn this valuable and revealing anthology, cultural critic and bestselling author Roxane Gay collects original and previously published pieces that address what it means to live in a world where women have to measure the harassment, violence, and aggression they face, and where they are “routinely second-guessed, blown off, discredited, denigrated, besmirched, belittled, patronized, mocked, shamed, gaslit, insulted, bullied†for speaking out.
“Roxane Gay is the brilliant girl-next-door: your best friend and your sharpest critic.
* Read or Download This Book * Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape CultureĮdited and with an introduction by Roxane Gay, the New York Times bestselling and deeply beloved author of Bad Feminist and Hunger, this anthology of first-person essays tackles rape, assault, and harassment head-on.
Anyone familiar with Gay’s books or tweets knows she also wields a dagger-sharp wit.- PDF Download Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture Books to Download for Kindle Hunger is Gay at her most lacerating and probing. Gay says hers is not a success story because it’s not the weight-loss story our culture demands, but her breaking of her own silence, her movement from shame and self-loathing toward honoring and forgiving and caring for herself, is in itself a profound victory. We all need to hear what Gay has to say in these pages. We are all better for having you do so in the same ferociously honest fashion that you have written this book.
Her spare prose, written with a raw grace, heightens the emotional resonance of her story, making each observation sharper, each revelation more riveting. And on nearly every page, Gay’s raw, powerful prose plants a flag, facing down decades of shame and self-loathing by reclaiming the body she never should have had to lose.
The book’s short, sharp chapters come alive in vivid personal anecdotes. The result is a generous and empathic consideration of what it’s like to be someone else: in itself something of a miracle. In 88 short, lucid chapters, Gay powerfully takes readers through realities that pain her, vex her, guide her, and inform her work. It’s hard to imagine this electrifying book being more personal, candid, or confessional. Kirkus Reviews (starred review)ĭisplays bravery, resilience, and naked honesty from the first to last page. An intense, unsparingly honest portrait of childhood crisis and its enduring aftermath. Publishers Weekly (starred review)Ī heart-rending debut memoir from the outspoken feminist and essayist. Gay denies that hers is a story of “triumph,” but readers will be hard pressed to find a better word. This raw and graceful memoir digs deeply into what it means to be comfortable in one’s body. Gay turns to memoir in this powerful reflection on her childhood traumas…Timely and resonant, you can be sure that Hunger will touch a nerve, as so much of Roxane Gay’s writing does. a memoir that’s so brave, so raw, it feels as if ’s entrusting you with her soul Seattle Times At its most symphonic, it’s an intellectually rigorous and deeply moving exploration of the ways in which trauma, stories, desire, language and metaphor shape our experiences and construct our reality. Ann Patchett, Commonwealth and Bel CantoĪt its simplest, it’s a memoir about being fat - Gay’s preferred term - in a hostile, fat-phobic world. HUNGER is an amazing achievement in more ways than I can count.
Roxane Gay shows us how to be decent to ourselves, and decent to one another. It turns out that when a wrenching past is confronted with wisdom and bravery, the outcome can be compassion and enlightenment-both for the reader who has lived through this kind of unimaginable pain and for the reader who knows nothing of it.