Roxane Gay’s I Once Was Miss America delves into the types of escapism books and other mediums of entertainment can provide from the rigors of High School. Gay says in her article that she used the Sweet Valley High book series as a means of escaping the bullying that she handled on a regular basis. Personally, I can relate to Gay in how she used books as a means of escaping the bullies that plagued her time in school, I was never the most popular kid in school, and I often found myself preferring to read books than to hang out with friends. Something interesting that Gay brings up that I’ve never thought of before, is that Gay mentions that she has an easier time remembering the names of the characters from the Sweet Valley High than the names of her former classmates, and I can relate to someone who can recall the names and history of fictional characters but can struggled with the names of the real people who shared your school. I enjoyed this article because I like how relatable Gay presents herself, with her past hardships and her devotion to the stuff she loves. The only thing that I personally don’t relate to is that Gay mentions her bullies in her Award acceptance speech, and to me that came off as her finally being able to prove herself to those bullies, but to me I just don’t care enough about the people who have bullied me in my past, to me I have nothing to prove as opposed to Gay who felt she needed to prove something in front of them.