In 2012, Roxane Gay, the founding essays editor at The Rumpus, published an essay ostensibly about about The Hunger Games. Those on Twitter who followed Gay — already famous, at least in the indie literary world, for her straightforward, insightful writing about Sweet Valley High , toxic American racism and more — had known that she was a huge fan of the film and book series (and a die-hard member of Team Peeta). But within a few paragraphs, it became clear that the essay wasn’t your average chronicle of an obsessive love for a film. Rather, Gay used The Hunger Games as an entry point to write about being raped in an abandoned hunting cabin in the woods when she was 12 years old, and the end of her illusions of safety and strength.

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