Milk Fed: Melissa Broder Paperback – 17 Feb. 2022

I really love Melissa Broder's writing style. It is frank, explicit and raw in all the best ways.Milk Fed deals with a lot of interesting themes such as sexuality, body image, disordered eating and mental health. The protagonist Rachel is not particularly likeable but she is very human in the way her flaws and struggles are depicted and her thoughts which we are privy to. The relationship between Rachel and Miriam was captured in such a realistic way that I could feel the awkwardness and tension at times. This is the power of Broder's writing as it allows you to really get under the skin of her characters and she doesn't try too hard to make us like and relate to every aspect of them.I didn't love this as much as The Pisces however Broder is fast becoming the kind of author where I will read anything she publishes.

Read this on holiday, not what I was expecting but read it cover-to-cover quite quickly and am still thinking about it. Enjoyed!

I loved the lively writing and personality evident in the first quarter or half of this book. BUT... it ran out of steam fast. It could have been a cute lesbian romance, and at one point it looks like it will be, but it is actually a dead end, filled with a lot of strange Oedipal longing. Not sexy, just odd.

Melissa Broder writes some strange novels. The Pisces is about a woman with low self esteem who takes up with a merman and this one keeps up the standard with a similar heroine but, in this instance, she finds love with a woman and food! Rachel, the heroine in question, has a serious eating disorder brought on by an unpleasant mother and a distant father which has come to rule her life.The first chapter of the book is about what she eats day by day and minute by minute. It’s a monument to obsessive calorie control, assisted by eating far too much sweetener but, predictably, when her control is lost she binges uncontrollably. It’s a good description of an eating disorder and its capacity to rule one’s life.What quickly becomes clear is the link between her controlling diet, her perceptions of herself and her relationships with others so that it is logical that she becomes friendly with a girl from a yoghurt bar. The book traces the slow expansion of their relationship and the way that Rachel, literally, eats her way into it. The woman she meets there, Miriam, is controlled in a different way by her orthodox Jewish religion and its expectations and she slowly cast off these controls as Rachel abandons her diet.Without being coy about it, Miriam is marginally obese but her plump, expansive frame is a heavenly counterpoint to Rachel’s starved body. She eats plenty to maintain it as well. In fact, food is everywhere in the novel. The film adaptation will be a monument to product placement because everything is branded, instant and understood in terms of its calories and, frequently, its sweetness.It’s no wonder Rachel needs these compensations from what we read about her past, the stripping away of her self-confidence and her tentative steps to discover herself as a lesbian. It makes her a difficult friend and, having been invited to Miriam’s house and taken to the bosom of her overly loving and embracing family, she messes up big time. She messes up at work as well. In fact, life generally is a struggle.Somehow, this unlikely book works. The sumptuousness of the food, the over enclosing nature of Miriam’s family, the emergent relationship and Rachel’s constant hatred and rejection of herself and her body are wrapped together in an unlikely package which carries the reader along. Some critics describe the book as erotic and there is something slightly strange in the way that everything is oral so that the eating overlaps with the sex. As to whether you find it erotic, well that’s up to you, but it might make you think twice as you tuck into your dinner!(Milk Fed is published by Bloomsbury Publishing. Thanks to the publishers and to NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for a fair review.)

this might be my new favourite book of all time. there is something about broder's writing that really scratches an itch in my brain.milk fed is oozing and bubbling over with bodily fluids, spiritual and familial yearning and sweet, mystical milk. it follows antiheroine rachel, a 24-year-old lapsed jew who is committed to a solitary existence of psychological self-torture revolving around extreme calorie restriction, exercise, bingeing and rituals. physically, rachel spends her days working at a hollywood talent agency and her evenings as a stand-up comedian before coming home to her empty apartment. mentally, though, she is totally ruled by her eating disorder, which she follows like a religion.early in a therapist-advised communication detox from her toxic, weight-obsessed mother, rachel meets miriam, an orthodox jewish woman who works in her favourite frozen yoghurt shop. miriam's love language is to feed and rachel is physically and emotionally starved. the pair fall in almost-love amidst a rocky whirlwind of chinese food, shabbat festivities and volcanic ice cream sundaes, and slowly, rachel's relationship with food begins to change for the better.broder has married evocative personal insight with stimulating full-colour fantasy to accomplish this story of restriction and indulgence in everything we long for and fear, which is in equal parts devastating, funny, sexy and so very real.

Broder's previous book 'The Pisces' could be classed under Venice Beach Merman Erotica, this book is LA Eating Disorder Jewish Lesbian Erotica. If that is your bag then you are in luck!I enjoyed 'The Pisces', it was a joyous, daft romp that had some hilarious comments on dating and personal grooming. 'Milk Fed' is just on the wrong side of angst for me, I needed a bit more joy and a little less body dysmorphia. I did not warm to Rachel, she was so self absorbed that I felt exhausted, to the extent that I found it hard to feel sorry for her when she is let down by all those around her.

I liked the book due to show what really happens with someone with eating disorder. The main character is full of issues like anyone of us. Also, the romance between Rachel and Miriam maybe could dislikes some people because depicted the intimacy of a plus size women. Actually I really enjoyed it.

The book did have some scratches on it when it came but they were barely noticeable. In terms of the book itself, it is amazing. Just know that it talks about sensitive topics like eating disorders and sexuality. The concept and the way the book is written is so real. I myself struggle with eating and I was able to recognize myself through the writing which was really eye-opening. I really did enjoy reading this book since it's "modern" without being cringey. I feel like books nowadays try too hard to be relatable which ruins the experience, but this book was perfectly "readable". I would totally recommend reading it even if you aren't much of a reader because neither am I.

Well written study over women’s bodies and the pressure from the media to adhere to its standards. Narrates obsessions and desire in the most descriptive yet seductive ways. Desire is desire from the most banal desire to real human ones, they’re valid and when not satiated some issues may arise. I was not expecting the book to be what it was but I enjoyed it, specially when it explores sexuality and religion, compromises and womanhood.

Beau livre

A little confronting at times if you have 'mother issues' but a brilliant read!