She makes it clear that it is not the kind of story that ends with her becoming thin and standing in one leg of her old pants to show off her weight loss. Yesterday I finished reading Roxane Gay’s memoir, Hunger, a memoir about being fat. I think that by reading memoirs written by people that have grown up in other countries or cultures or just live different kinds of lives, the reader becomes more empathetic. I read I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai when I was a teenager, and learned how dangerous it is to be a teenage girl going to school in Pakistan under the Taliban. I read Trevor Noah’s memoir, Born a Crime, a couple years ago, and had a small window into what it was like growing up as a mixed race child during Apartheid in South Africa. Memoir is one of my favorite genres, because when I read memoirs, I get to read about the author’s life and experiences, which may be vastly different from mine.
