PositiveThe Pittsburgh Post-GazetteOf course we already know there will be no reveal, no 'after' shot of improvement. And this may be why this book is so unputdownable ... This isn’t to suggest the book lacks Ms. Gay’s signature humor, although it appears less frequently than her readers may have come to expect. The serious tone in a writer known for humor is to be credited, there’s less to hide behind ... The book isn’t perfection unbridled, either. There’s a great deal of repetition, in words and ideas. And while the reiteration has some artistic merit given the circular nature of the problem, it’s overdone. There are also techniques of the essayist used here — summarizing and telling — that don’t serve a memoir ... Nonetheless, Roxane Gay is using her platform to share a story she didn’t have to, a story that would otherwise have gone untold.
