Grove Press and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Difficult Women.  This is my honest opinion of the book.

Difficult Women is a series of small vignettes about women in differing and troubling circumstances.  They are women who have been used, abused, and sometimes spit out by the system.  These women have been victimized, most of the time more than once.  Each has a story to tell and they are clustered together in Difficult Women.

I had trouble seeing the point to these stories.  The author explains what happened, but there is no real solution in many of the vignettes.  These realistic stories show the depravity of society, but I really never felt a powerful connection to any of the characters that are depicted in Difficult Women.  The novel, as a whole, is too repetitive and loses the reader's focus as a result.  I was not a fan of Difficult Women and would not recommend it to other readers.

Well I don't normally go for short stories as I'm not usually a fan, and I liked but did not love Bad Feminist (that is to say, I loved some essays but some did not like all that much so overall it was an ok read but not what I had originally hoped for). Despite this, every time Roxane Gay has a new book I automatically add it to the TBR. I always hear such great things about her books and I think she has important things to say.

I actually liked this book quite a bit. It was not an easy read though, and I alternated between tearing through the stories and having to take a breather to master my emotions and the heavy feeling in my gut after reading many of them.

Absolutely worth a look.

Gay is a star, as always, this time using her power to tackle power, gender, race, and womanhood - all through the stories of difficult women and the rape, violence, and shame they're subjected to.

This was a difficult book to rate. On the one hand, there is no denying that Roxane Gay is a powerful, evocative, extremely talented writer who does not shy away from difficult, complex topics. Some of the stories in this collection are just a few paragraphs, but not one is forgettable. She writes about rich women, poor women, single women, abused women, hurt women, and strong women. Gay particularly shines when describing the bonds between women.

Nevertheless, the overall dark tone and some graphic descriptions left me unsettled. Perhaps that is the point, but at this point in my life, I don't care to immerse myself in the darkness. I respect this collection, but I didn't enjoy reading it.

Amazing, difficult book. Roxane Gay is one of the finest voice writing today.

Twenty-one short stories about flawed, complex individuals who might typically be reduced to dismissive categories. I can't say I enjoyed reading Difficult Women, but I'm glad I read it. One of the many things that Gay excelled at was creating fully-formed characters and relationships in just a few pages. I felt like I intimately knew each character, even though some of the stories were very short. We're introduced to a variety of women: jaded women, women who don't think they deserve love, women who have been hurt by those they trusted or strangers, women who want to feel pain, women who are trying to find their place, women who know exactly what they want out of life, fierce women who instinctively protect their loved ones.

It isn't light reading. These characters have been pushed to the limit and each story felt like an additional weight on my shoulders. In multiple stories a character begs another not to break their heart, only to be later disappointed. Common threads weave throughout many of the stories: child loss, adultery, abuse, rough sex, twins, the bond between women. My only complaint is that if you read it straight through, it feels like you're repeatedly reading about the same situations. I got the most out of it when I only read a single story at a time, so that I could focus more on their differences than their similarities.

One of the best parts of this collection were the moments of recognition and vindication--the feeling that someone else out there understands. There's a part in Difficult Women (Crazy Women) where a woman explains the considerations she makes when walking home late at night and her boyfriend tells her she is crazy. I had this exact same conversation in college and I remember how it made me question my own sanity. It goes to show the importance of having a diversity of voices.

I didn't feel like I fully understood every story, but I found this great quote from Gay about the creation of Water, All Its Weight: "When I wrote this story I was living in an apartment with a rotting ceiling, and I thought: “What if someone created rot just by existing?” It’s interesting that a lot of people read way more into this story. When I write, there is rarely some grand statement I am trying to make. This story was simply a story about a girl who is followed, haunted by water and its weight. Literally." (Chicago Review of Books). It made me feel more at ease when thinking about the stories that ventured into magical realism.

THE STORIES 

I usually only feature my favorite short stories in these collections, but I felt the need to think through all these stories. My favorites are bolded. Many were shorter, character pieces, but I tend to like longer stories with more plot.

I Will Follow You- A haunting story about the unbreakable bond between sisters. Savvie and Carolina endured a terrible trauma together when they were children. Carolina is married now, but the sisters will always remain inseparable. A perfect opening!

Water, All Its Weight - Everywhere Bianca goes, the water follows--and then comes the rot and mold. Unable to handle the side effects of Bianca's company, everyone in her life abandons her. My favorite moment is the short time when Bianca's affliction is celebrated.

The Mark of Cain (link goes to story)- When this husband is with his mistress, he has his twin brother take his place at home. He thinks his wife doesn't know, but she does--and she prefers the brother. The cycle of violence and the burdens our family can place on us.

Difficult Women - Different categories of misunderstood women: Loose Women, Frigid Women, Crazy Woman, Mothers, Dead Girls. My favorite was Crazy Women.

Florida - A peek into the windows of a Naples, Florida community. There are racial and class divides amongst the inhabitants and employees. New resident Marcy feels out of place next to her perfect neighbors and immediately sees that they "only [exist] in relation to those around them."

La Negra Blanca - A stripper becomes the fixation of a wealthy client who feels entitled to her body. This man fetishizes black women, but was always taught to keep his distance so as not to "tarnish" the family name.

Baby Arm - A woman who knows exactly what she wants out of a relationship meets a man who gets her idiosyncracies. She conflates love and pain. She regularly attends all-girl fight club with her best friend Tate and other "girls who keep their ugly beneath the skin where it belongs, even though sometimes, it's hard to keep it all in." She loves Tate fiercely and Tate always knows exactly what she needs.

North Country - Kate is a black woman, which makes her a "double novelty" at her new university job. She's welcomed with a barrage of insensitive questions and unwanted advances. She’s not ready for love after the end of a bad relationship and the loss of a child, but she begins to see a possible future with a charming logger named Magnus.


How - After years of being taken advantage of, Hanna's family finally pushes her to her breaking point. She makes a plan to run off with her twin sister and her true love Laura. I loved the structure this story and the mini-chapters with names like How These Things Come to Pass & How Hanna Ikonen Knows It Is Time to Get the Girl and Get Out of Town.

Requiem for a Glass Heart - A couple that loves each other, but they each need more than the other can give. The stone thrower, a man of flesh and blood, steals away moments where he "does not have to see too much or love too carefully.” Likewise, the glass woman is sometimes frustrated with her husband "who sees too much and loves too carefully." Their needs overlap, but they're unable to provide those things for each other.

In the Event of My Father’s Death - A father takes his daughter to his mistress’s house on weekends. She eventually follows in father's footsteps.

Break All the Way Down - A woman “uses one hurt to cover another” by finding an abusive boyfriend after the death of her child. Her husband stands on the sidelines until he's unable to watch her self-destruct any longer.

Bad Priest - A priest who "lied so extravagantly that even though he was not a believer, he feared for his mortal soul.” He begins an affair with Rebekah, a woman who "thrived on hopeless relationships." My favorite part was the explanation of why Mickey became a priest.

Open Marriage - A woman toys with her husband after he suggests an open marriage. She knows he'll never be able to follow through.

A Pat - A woman extends kindness to a stranger, but her motivations may be more selfish than it initially appears.

Best Features - Milly is overweight and gets involved in unhealthy relationships because she thinks she has no choice. "She knows how difficult it is to change the world. She used to try to change the world, but she learned better."

Bone Density - A complicated relationship. The couple in this story both have partners outside the marriage, but they still have a strange pull towards one another.

I Am Knife - A powerful woman who uses her capability for violence to protect her loved ones. After the tragic death of her own child, she enviously watches as her twin sister's pregnant belly grows. As painful as it is, she will always be at her sister's side. “I wish I could carve the anger out of my body the way I cut everything else.” 

Strange Gods - The first story and last story complement each other. A woman details her past trauma and explains to her devoted partner why she sometimes pushes him away.

My favorite two stories were the ones that felt most of out place:


The Sacrifice of Darkness- Every time miner Hiram Hightower goes underground, he comes back up less of a man. Fed up with a life filled with darkness, he causes the sun to disappear by flying an air machine into it. His family is left to deal with the consequences of his actions. A sweet love story with a hopeful end.

Noble Things - Takes place after the second secession of South and the New Civil War. Anna married Patrick, son of a celebrated general who led the Southern states into battle. She wants to move to the North where they've already sent their young son. Patrick hates what the South has become, but his obligation to his family makes it difficult for him to leave. Sacrifice and the ties that bind us. There are so many chilling lines in this one.


Difficult Women is a fascinating collection of short stories that I would love to read again eventually. There's so much to unpack that it's impossible to get it all in one go. This was my first Roxane Gay experience, but it certainly won't be my last!

4.5 stars

This book has some knock-your-socks-off, powerful stories in it.

Difficult Women is a book to watch out for, and so is Roxane Gay. This was my first foray into her writing, but it certainly won't be my last. Her no-holds-barred style of writing is real, gritty and in-your-face. Her knowledge of the inner workings of human suffering is something to be admired.

I loved most of her stories, but will highlight only a select few, otherwise this review would become the length of a book:

I Will Follow You- Two sisters have survived an abduction when they were children by a man they call Mr. Pete. The matter-of-fact way the story is written is bone-chilling.

Best Feautures- An overweight woman deals with relationships amidst her growing resentment at being second choice for men. 

Break All the Way Down- A woman deals with immeasurable grief through hurting herself, and is trying to find her way back home with the help of a woman's most precious gift.

La Negra Blanca- A stripper is trying to make the most of her life during a time when one of her clients doesn't want to let her go.

How-Twin females learn to save themselves and live their lives in happiness, no matter what their parents have done to them.

Thanks so much to netgalley for the arc. It's books like this that are the reason I signed up with them in the first place. I look forward to reading Roxane Gay's book Untamed State.

Difficult Women, a collection of 21 stories, some exceedingly short and others almost a novella, is a difficult book to review.

I almost gave up at 14%, having disliked 3 of the first 4 stories. I decided to give it until 20% and, before I knew where I was, I was 30% into the book and enjoying Gay's writing. The stories I enjoyed least were mainly at the beginning and the end of the book. The ones in the middle captivated me and I began to appreciate Gay's 'no frills' writing style. A common theme running through most of these stories is the difficulty of leaving your past behind.

My favourite story of the collection is an extremely short one 'Open Marriage' in which a discussion over some expired yoghurt in the fridge suddenly takes an unexpected turn. In this, Gay's wry sense of humour shines through. 

My least favourite story was the title story, 'Difficult Women'.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for providing a digital ARC of Difficult Women by Roxanne Gay for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

Another amazing work by Roxane Gay! Not a light read, I was uncomfortable and angry most of the time. But my head and my heart were encouraged by the strength of her ideas and the conviction of her words. I feel motivated. I feel inspired. I will refer back to this collection many times, I'm sure.

A collection of short stories, Difficult Women exactly what it promises. Stories about difficult women. Varying socio-economic statuses and difficulties, all these women live rare (I hope), quirky, disturbing lives.

There's the woman who goes to a fight-club in her off time, with a co-worker who is the only person who understands her. There are the sisters who were abducted as children, and now, as grown women, are inseparable, although one is married. There is the black engineer who moves to Northern Michigan in an attempt to put her past behind her. There is a couple who deal with their infertility during hunting season.

A couple of times in Difficult Women Gay creates mini-collections, using the same setting to tell readers stories of the women who live there. She uses the small, Upper Michigan town to tell a variety of stories of women trapped in a smallish northern town. She also uses a gated community (I think it's gated; it's that type of community, at any rate) to tell a variety of stories from that community.

This group of stories are sometimes difficult and some of the women are a little off-kilter (again, I hope), but they're enlightening, and my favorite kind of stories. Because, as crazy and difficult as these women are, Gay does a great job of explaining them a bit. By going to the dark corners of her character's minds, she often tells us why some these women are so difficult (although some of them are just crazy, tbh).

I say this every time I read a collection of stories, but short stories aren't my favorite. But somehow this one really connected with me. Maybe because I'm a woman and I can be difficult. Maybe because it does tell stories of women doing slightly (and some not-so-slightly) crazy things because its the only way their lives can work and make sense. And because it's so different.

It's beautiful and raw and dark and real. I cannot imagine living some (most) of these lives, but Gay helps me understand them. At times these stories made me down-right uncomfortable (as the mother of daughters, especially), but that's what good fiction does sometimes. It takes you to places you don't go in everyday life, opening up new and different views.

Difficult Women was a wonderful start to my reading life in 2017. Quick, different, and interesting. I highly recommend it!

***I received an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review***

I loved Bad Feminist when I read it a few months ago, and when I heard that Gay's collection of short stories was being published, I knew I had to read it.

Difficult Women is a collection of short stories, ranging from realistic fiction to magical realism and even to dystopia. Based on the title, it's easy to realize that the short stories all feature unique and strong women. The stories all ranged and I enjoyed most of them. A few were hard to read (as they dealt with dark and sometimes distressing topics) but Gay's distinct writing style made each short story unique and worth the read. The stories ranged in length, but ultimately they were each extraordinary.

Overall, Difficult Women was a wonderfully written short story collection with a unique voice and characters that readers will definitely be invested in!

I came into this book with low expectations. I know Roxane Gay only from her nonfiction work, so I was expecting a collection of stories with interesting ideas and feminist themes, but perhaps not the most elegant writing. And I was pleasantly very wrong: this book absolutely blew me away.

It is, as the title states, a book about difficult women. Women who strike out on their own path and refuse to follow traditional gender roles. Women who do anything it takes to survive. Women in bad situations, or women in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s easy to classify them all as ‘difficult’ but it’s also a bit depressing to realize that a women can be difficult for something as simple as not listening to a man. As you’d expect from Gay, these stories have a strong feminist vibe and sell the message very well. It never feels forced or preachy: in fact, it’s a depressingly realistic realization that all women are ‘difficult women.’

The writing here is lush and varied. We go from stories totally grounded in reality to hints of magical realism to full-out fantasy to a terrifying dystopian future. The mood changes: we get more upbeat love-themed tales, heartbreaking life stories, little slice of life pieces that are nearly flash fiction, epic-in-scope fantasy… I was wowed by how easily she shifted genre, mood, and tone while still giving them all a cohesive vibe.

Every story felt like it belonged here. Some were so depressing I almost hated them because of how they made me feel, others so short and brief they don’t seem to fit at first. There are stories that end at the worst possible moment, ones that start after the action. And yet they mesh together perfectly by the end. Difficult women are not just difficult in the way they live their lives, but in how their stories are told. They’re not easy to digest: some are challenging thematically, some emotionally. One made me cry. But they all touched me in different ways, and for once I feel like I’ve read a short story collection where I wouldn’t remove a single one

excellent story collection. varied characters, POV, themes.

I have a confession: I've never read any Roxane Gay before I read this collection of short stories. Bad Feminist has been on my TBR for a long time...and I'm eagerly anticipating her memoir Hunger that is coming out later this year. I'm so glad I was finally able to inhale some of her writing, and I know this will be the first of many of her books I will read.

Difficult Women is a short story collection about women. Even the stories that follow a man are about the women that man interacts with more than the man himself. These stories aren't generally happy, and there's a quiet, pervading sense of tragedy in each. It wasn't an easy read, by any means, but it was an important one. As it followed many different kinds of women, their stories were laced with society's expectations for them and men's feelings towards them, what they wanted for themselves, and how past tragedies shape their bodies and their lives (ALL trigger warnings here). 

That isn't to say, however, that there aren't bright spots in some of the stories. Some of the men know how to love women without hurting them. Even those tender moments are laced with the tragedy that has come before that man, or the assumptions that even good men make about women, particularly when white men make assumptions about women of color. In this way, it's not just about women, but about other complex social issues, including racism. One character is asked repeatedly if she's from Detroit, simply because she's a black woman teaching in a Michigan university. One character who is biracial thinks her boyfriend looks at her as brown enough to be exotic, but white enough to be acceptable. In this way, less physically violent tragedies in women's lives are also highlighted.

I'll be honest that I am a woman, but haven't had to deal with many of the issues presented here. I'm a white woman, so I am privileged in the assumptions others will make about me. I have never been abused or raped, but this collection makes my heart ache for those of us who have. These fictional short stories are all too real in our world today, and I'm afraid that it isn't going to change anytime soon. I think everyone should read this collection, men and women alike. We all need to begin to understand that sexism is still very real and prevalent in our society, and even moreso for women of color. When major countries can still elect misogynistic leaders, it's important for us to be aware of experiences still happening far too often in our society, and to use that awareness to combat sexism and racism and the treating of women and people of color as less than. Please read this book. Embrace its stories, and understand it's not all gloom and doom, but there's still a lot of work to be done.

There's no doubt about it: Roxane Gay is the name in creative writing classes.  I wish the collection was about more than relationships, but what it is about is about how women respond to men in various relationships, which will provide readers with much to ponder, and students to discuss.

I read Roxane Gay’s new collection of short fiction: Difficult Women. At first I wasn’t sure I was in the right reading mood for this collection (there are some heavy topics in here for holiday reading), but she quickly pulled me in — by the second story I was completely hooked on these vivid portraits of women that feature insight into race, class, abuse, love, and strength. It’s a beautiful collection of short fiction by an awesome Bad Feminist.

Women are beautiful strong humans. In Roxane Gay's new release, Difficult Women, there are stories that focus on women from all walks of life and circumstance. Some are privileged; some are of poverty. Some are leaders; some are better as followers. Some are smarter than they let on while others conform easily. Some are sad and others just ignore the pain. Some live in glass houses while others live in shadows. But one common fact is apparent: women are molded by their experiences.

If you are familiar with Roxane Gay's writing from her previous book An Untamed State and essay collection Bad Feminist, then you know the good quality you'll get from reading her work. You'll also understand how challenging it is to describe her books without completely giving away the story. So trust me; Difficult Women is no exception.

A title means everything. It is my very first impression of a book. Sometimes it catches my attention and sometimes I skim over it on a bookshelf because of the title. For authors that I trust and will read whatever new work published, titles give me a hint of the book's content. Difficult Women is a title that is straight-forward. I assume it is about women that are difficult to get along with or full of drama. But as I read the stories, I never came across any difficult women. It was more women in difficult situations or women with difficulties. But the women themselves were not difficult, if that makes sense. Nonetheless, I am here to tell bookhearts do not get discouraged or bypass this book just because of its title. There is a story—or two or three or five—that you are sure to relate to. But there are also a couple stories that threw me way off and didn't seem to belong. They didn't quite carry the same voice of the author.

Roxane Gay is and remains one of the realest writers out here. Her tweets are entertaining and thought-provoking. Her books always leave a lasting impression. Roxane Gay has a way with words! This new collection of stories show her talent and vision of modern women.

So Happy Pub Day! Difficult Women is available as of today (January 3, 2017).. Oh, and take a moment to admire the book cover!

LiteraryMarie