Book Chatter

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
By Roxane Gay
Harper, 9780062362599, June 2017, 320pp.

The Short of It:

Gay’s story touches on so many things. Although the title is called Hunger, it’s about insecurities, fear, doubt, and most of all identity.

The Rest of It:

This book fell into my hands at the library and although it’s a memoir, my least fave thing to read besides romance, I decided to read a few pages to see if I would like it and the next time I put it down was when I finished it.

At a very young age, Roxane Gay was gang-raped by a group of boys and it affected her for years to come. When I say affected, I mean that it completely transformed who she thought she was which directly impacted how she felt about her body. Her body grew as she continued to feed it. This feeding, her weak attempt at burying herself and making herself invisible caused other problems, of course.

This was a powerful read and very well-done. It gave me a lot to think about and yes, anyone who has struggled with weight, myself included, will certainly identify with what Gay speaks of but it’s so much more. Even if you are not a fan of memoir, pick it up because it’s very, very good.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

The Visitors
By Catherine Burns
Gallery/Scout Press, 9781501164019, September 26, 2017, 304pp.

The Short of It:

Once you figure out who the “visitors” are, you quickly realize how horrible the situation is.

The Rest of It:

Marion lives with her older brother John. She’s a spinster and the two live a somewhat quiet life. Mostly because John is not the most social of people. Together, they live in a run-down mansion and although Marion sometimes dreams of life outside its walls, she is too self-conscious of herself to make any friends of her own and why bother anyway? No one would care to know her the way she looks. She’s plain, old and completely uninteresting.

But the real reason she stays close to home is because her brother John is different. Disturbed, I should say. He doesn’t approve of her having any friends and he is unable to make any of his own given his harshness and lack of manners.

Things change when The Visitors come.

Without giving the secret away, the entire book focuses on The Visitors and how they’ve come to inhabit Marion and John’s house. There are dark things going on within the house and it takes Marion a really long time to figure them out. This was rather infuriating to me as a reader but it was interesting too because Marion’s reaction to it all is not what you’d expect.

Catherine Burns does a decent job of “keeping the secret” and I found myself pretty absorbed by Marion and John’s situation but ultimately the ending was a little rushed. It’s being compared to Room and I can see that comparison but the tension is not as high in this one.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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