REview: Difficult women by Roxane Gay (DNF)

Here goes my second DNF of the year. I read 77 pages of this, and honestly, I should have abandoned this after the first "short story". I say "short stories" because they are not, not really. All of them are snippets - unfinished, unresolved, without a purpose except maybe to shock and disgust. 

My main question is this - what is the purpose of these stories and who are they written for?

Because surely, they are not written for women, not for women who are the topic of these stories. Not for the rape survivors, not for the abused, not for the mistreated. 

Because there is no comfort in these stories. There's only crudeness and pain, and abuse and rape, rape, rape. And the worst part? These women take it. They think they deserve it, they don't fight, they don't want retribution. These are not Difficult Women, these women are broken, empty, just vessels for the horrors that happen to them. 

There is a better way to tell these stories. A way that will not make a surviver relive their worst fears on the paper, a way that honors the survivors, a way that tells the truth without spitting it in your face. 

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