This was such a wonderful, feminist book. I loved all the concept of the short stories and how they focused on traits in women that society would look down on. I'm definitely interested in reading more by Roxane Gay.

I enjoyed this book, but it did take me a long time to get through. I know Roxane Gay as a Twitter persona and from Goodreads, but had no idea about her past. I think this book is an interesting concept- she presents a series of short vignettes about women who are going through passionate, intense, moving, or terrifying times. I liked that there were women from all walks of life and none of them seemed to have everything figured out. She drew a nice parallel between the stories and got down to the humanity of each woman. That said, this was dark. I was most touched by the abduction story of the sisters, and it sounds like this is largely based on her own experience so I commend her for that. I'm glad books like these exist, because the stories are important, but it was a tough read and I'm not too arrogant to admit that it might have been too dark for me to return to. I can see it's a good book, but perhaps not for me at this time.

I don’t know what I was expecting when I picked up Roxane Gay’s book Difficult Women. If I’m honest I didn’t realise it was a book of short stories. What I got was a book of diverse and compelling tales that I was intrigued by.

No two stories had the same voice. Every time a new story started I was transported to a new place and time and new characters to figure out. It really is an interesting compendium of stories. I don’t want to go into details about the stories because they are something that you should discover yourself but I promise you that Roxane Gay doesn’t hold back. Be prepared to read a story that packs a punch.

Difficult Women by Roxane Gay is available now.

For more information regarding Roxanne Gay (@rgay) please visit www.roxanegay.com.

For more information regarding Grove Atlantic (@groveatlantic) please visit www.groveatlantic.com.

Roxanne Gay is a skilled writer. This a wonderful collection of stories about difficult women and women in difficult circumstances or relationships. If readers are looking for pain to resolved and endings that are neatly concluded and happy, they won't find it here.

Somehow, I never posted this review of "Difficult Women” That’s a shame, because this is a book I’ve returned to with enjoyment of the layers which continue to be peeled back as I reread these stories.

"Difficult Women”, and the difficult men and women in their lives are at the heart of these short stories that describe the violence and love in the character’s lives. Most of the stories embrace a magical realism that shimmers around sisters and lovers.

I can hardly wait for “Hunger”, coming in June.

I received an advance copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I've been a fan of Roxane Gay's writing since I first read it on a Tumblr reblog, and have followed her trajectory for years. I've read and re-read her nonfiction and essays for years, but have avoided her fiction because I didn't think I could emotionally handle it, based on how strongly her nonfiction affected me.

Well, it took me six months, but I did finish this book. And it's stunning and ugly and beautiful and wonderful at exploring relationships and men and women and life, and I had to take weeks off between each story to let my heart recover. When I read fiction, it's primarily genre fiction, which most of this is not. But Gay's forays into speculative or magical realism feel easy and natural, not like a dry intellectual exercise. At times, reading this felt like staring at something so hideous and intimate that I was a voyeur into these womens' lives, fears, and love. Absolutely recommended and almost makes me want to read An Untamed State, though I'm afraid that it will drive me to lie on the floor for days in recovery.

May I suggest that a more apt title would have been Women in Difficult Situations? All of these women seemed to be in a negative world, in bad situations, broken by their pasts, in a spiral of self-destruction. Is this what a difficult woman is? I was hoping for feminist difficult women, who stood up and worked for their own selves, were difficult against the patriarchy. That aside, this is a fairly good collection of short stories with a variety of styles.

I don't know how to write this review.

Difficult Women is a collection of stories from Roxanne Gay who is one of the best contemporary feminist writers. These are stories that have been collected, from various sources and times in her life. There is a common thread...the loss of children, adultery, abuse, abandonment, sex, rough sex, abusive sex, sex sex sex sex sex sex....

Here's where my hesitation comes in....

I didn't like this. Sure, there were a few stories that were great. (I Am Knife and The Sacrifice of Darkness where two standout ones for me) But for the most part, I didn't like any of the characters or any of the stories. I'm not under some guise that I have to like the people in the books I read. Alice Munro, one of my favorite writers, talks often about how she doesn't write character that are necessarily likeable...and that's part of why I enjoy her writing. This just didn't do it for me. These were just....stories. They didn't make me feel anything. They didn't capture my attention. I didn't reach for the book every second of free time I had.

This, this was different....and maybe that was the whole point.

Thanks to NetGalley, Roxanne Gay and Grove Press for the eARC in exchange for this review.

3.5★
"For difficult women, who should be celebrated for their very nature."
Roxane Gay's introduction.

I really liked the first stories – the writing, the characters, the situations. But as it went on, too many of the women (and the men and occasional friends) were like replicas of each other. Whether wealthy or dirt poor, they were difficult for those around them.

I also had the feeling that almost all the women seemed to be defined by the men in their lives. In some cases, they were men they had left, while many were men they were with but needed to leave.

The stories were punctuated with physical battering and sex, often combined. The thoughtful, sensitive people who helped offer sympathy or pick up the pieces afterwards did so by stroking, tracing lines on bodies, and ultimately bathing these walking wounded. It became a theme so much that I would wait for the bath scene. This was sometimes preceded or followed by yet another sex scene.

If I’d read a story or two in a publication, I would have thought they were terrific. Or a novella of the connected ones, maybe.

There are a couple of groups of connected stories, where the characters are all living in a Florida retirement community, for example, which created some added interest.

Then there are a few stories with twins or siblings close in age with strong connections to each other. There are pole dancers, short order cooks, a professor, and an engineer, among others. Many are looking for a way out of their current situation, but a lot are just resigned.

Here, two inseparable sisters are travelling across the country with the older one's boyfriend. The younger asks the older about him.

“She pressed her forehead against mine. Something wet and heavy caught in my throat. ‘Why him?’

‘I’d be no good to a really good man and Darryl isn’t really a bad man.’

I knew exactly what she meant.”

Granted, these girls, victims of childhood abduction, have better reason than most to accept safety over love. But how about Caridad? She works in a gym and has to fend off her charming boss.

“He held her elbow too firmly, his teeth bared, wet. He loved to recline on the wieght bench, spreading his legs wide. He always wore loose shorts and no underwear during their sessions, letting his limp cock hang lazily against his left thigh. No matter how much weight he lifted, he grunted extravagantly. Caridad pretended not to notice. . .

She pushed Sal away, negotiating the complexity of making her point without getting fired.”

She needs the job, and her boyfriend’s hardly worth going home to.

“They had been dating for four years and their relationship was mostly unremarkable. She was smart enough to want more but tired enough to accept the way things were.”

That pretty much sums up the situation in many stories. But there are a few where the women desperately seek to be hurt to offset other, unbearable pain. Like pinching your finger as soon as you stub your toe to take your mind off your toe. We keep trying to fool ourselves.

It makes for 'difficult' reading – beatings, punches, bruises, rough sex and rapes. Gay writes poignancy well and describes some very sensitive scenes, too. I will look for something else she’s written, because I like her writing. I just found this book uneven.

Thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the review copy from which I’ve quoted (so quotes may have changed.)

This book was difficult to wade into, not because of any kind of high literary caliber, but because the writing made things seem insignificant. I couldn't bring myself to care about the characters. Ultimately, I could not finish this book.

I know this is a highly anticipated collection. I enjoyed 'Bad Feminist' so much... but I don't care for Ms. Gay's fiction. I tried twice to start and read this book and it's just not for me.

Yay, the streak of reading great books continues with Difficult Women, by the always-impressive Roxane Gay, which is a collection of twenty-one short (and not so short) stories about a variety of women’s lives. If you have not yet experienced her stories, you should first question everything about your life and then do yourself a great favor and pick up Bad Feminist, because it is crazy good. Roxane Gay’s specialty seems to me making me as uncomfortable as possible – definitely something that needs doing every now and again. There is almost no one else who makes me want to immediately sit down and write like she does.



The women in her stories this time are from all over the place. Some of them have terrible lives and some have great lives and some have no idea what they are doing with their lives. Most of them, like most people, are haunted by pain and by love. Some of the stories are only a few pages long and yet they convey entire lives in them. Gay has a huge talent for presenting human flaws as they are, without judgment or coddling. As a woman who has been called difficult more than once (twice? Let’s round to 100), I can appreciate the way she handles this. There are so many different stories and characters, but I would say that a week later I am still thinking about a few of them, including the story about two sisters who have bonded over a childhood trauma.



She is a hugely important feminist voice and her stark honesty is admirable. This is not a feel-good collection of stories, though. There are only a few that are not dark and a bit depressing, so fair warning if you are going in with a bad mood. I think the best way to do this – for someone with actual discipline – is to pick up the book over time and read one to two stories at a time. If I had been able to do anything other than power all the way through it because I loved the writing so much, I would have appreciated it even more. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a review copy of this book.



Difficult Women by Roxane Gay – Grade B

As someone who doesn't usually read short stories, I wasn't sure how I'd fare with this but I couldn't resist reading more Roxane Gay and I am so glad I gave this book a chance. This is not a collection that shies away from difficult topics or hard hitting subject matter but it handles all that it does with a sensitivity and emotional depth I have rarely seen. There is such beauty and wisdom to be found in these pages. Wholeheartedly recommended.

Roxane Gay's "Difficult Women" introduces the reader to a series of brilliant, damaged, abused, courageous, strong, weird, challenging women. Some of the characters in this collection of short stories are hard to like; you'll find yourself rooting for others instantly. While a couple of the stories stray into fantasy territory (the sun is swallowed by a man in a flying machine in one), most of them feel like the intimate realities of people you might know or pass on the street. One story, "Noble Things," feels so prescient right now you may squirm as you read it. It takes place after a fictional second Civil War, one that seems all-too-likely at the moment. This is the first of Roxane Gay's fiction I've read, and it won't be the last. She's amazing!

A collection of fictional short stories that packs a freaking punch. Centered around diverse women from all walks of life, Roxane Gay demonstrates such poignant storytelling in so little pages. Some scenes were just so chilling and powerful. Personally, I preferred the stories with complete arcs but held an appreciation for her shorter, artistic vignettes as well. My favorites were definitely Break All The Way Down, North Country, and Noble Things. La Negra Blanca and Strange Gods were also standout stories; they both made me shake with rage though..

Trigger warnings: sexual and domestic abuse

Thank you, Netgalley, for providing me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Difficult Women should be read by all women, protagonists within the pages breathe truth...The pain women suffer, be it by lovers, husbands, fathers, directly or indirectly by their actions comes across raw, painfully true...

The stories are beautifully rendered, touching my heart in it's hidden places, tears came easy.

Roxane Gay can only be described to be a beautiful soul, women's truth a precious gift she generously shares.

Having never attended a lecture given by this beautiful author, I will remedy this soon.

Thank you Grove Press and Net Galley for this ARC

Listen. It’s almost impossible for any collection of twenty-one short stories to please everyone all of the time, but with Difficult Women Roxane Gay comes closer than most to nailing it. The stories in this volume are, from start to finish, thoughtful, clever, funny, tragic and hopeful in turn. These stories are a rage-filled paean to the strength and resilience and weakness and fragility and everything in between of women. This is an ugly, heart-wrenching, beautiful book, and if Roxane Gay wrote three hundred forty-four more stories like this I would treat them like a devotional and reread them every year for the rest of my life.

Probably what I love best about Difficult Women is that Roxane Gay is so unconcerned with dualities. She avoids trite, reductive storytelling in favor of exploring the complexities of every day life. Gay’s difficult women deal with trauma and loss, they fall in love, and they fuck. They are kind and brave and capricious and cruel and yielding and stubborn and cold-hearted and hot-tempered and more, and every woman Gay writes about here contains multitudes. It’s impressive to find so much intricacy of character in short fiction, and Gay turns out one fascinating story after another.

That said, there’s a significant amount of thematic overlap and repetition between entries in the collection. Sexual violence, dead children, and abusive lovers figure largely in these tales, and this can at times create a sense of grimness that won’t be appealing to all readers. Certainly there are some lighter stories included, but I found those to have a slighter quality than those stories that dealt with weightier material. Altogether, though, the stories of Difficult Women are well-chosen and smartly arranged so that the reader is never overwhelmed by darkness, and those couple of slighter stories, while not among my favorites, perform an important function in the collection as a whole by periodically lightening the mood and offering the reader a perfect opportunity to grab a drink or take a break.

In style and genre, Gay is clearly a writer of wide-ranging interests, with several stories veering into the realm of magical realism and one (“The Sacrifice of Darkness”) that is unambiguously speculative in nature. Gay writes stories in numerous settings about characters of different ages, races and classes, floating in and out of her characters’ lives with what might seem like ease for the reader but I expect is the result of years of life experience and meticulous study of people combined with finely honed craft. Stylistically, these stories all tend towards a forthrightness that challenges the reader to really see and empathize with the characters with all their flaws and defies moralistic judgments. This is a collection that is keenly intellectual, but never self-consciously so. Even Gay’s symbolism is generally natural and easy to grasp, and she doesn’t bother with any too-precious conceits, complex metaphors or arcane allusions that might make the text inaccessible.

In the end, Difficult Women is just what it says it is and what it appears to be. It’s a work of elegant simplicity and brutal honesty and deeply humane reflections on the human condition. I look forward to shamelessly pushing it on literally everyone I know.

This was my first book by Roxane Gay ever and it DID NOT DISAPPOINT. This woman can write. I knew going into it that I was most likely going to love it but she truly blew me away with these stories and her words. The stories are each so moving but very difficult to read because of the distressing stories of each of these women. It's so raw. They're painful and heartfelt and powerful at the same time. I recommend this but also need readers to know that this work contains unsettling subject matter. You'll be thinking about this one for a WHIIILE after you've finished it. I can't wait to read more of Roxane's daring work. She's a rockstar.

*many thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review*