This book struck me as a bit uneven, but my take-away is that I need to read more by Roxane Gay. At their best, these essays expanded my thinking along both race and gender lines. At their worst, I felt like Roxane was an annoying friend who wouldn't just tell me what she thought of the movie, but wanted to replay it scene-by-scene for me - literally. Had I edited this collection, I would've cut the essays in which Gay reviews books (The Help), films (anything by Tyler Perry) and television shows (Orange is the New Black). I appreciated her smart perspectives on these works, and was simultaneously bored by the lengthy plot summaries I had to wade through to find them. I'm curious enough that I'll be picking up "Hunger" in the near future - and just hope she doesn't walk me through the recipes of her favorite foods!