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Milk Fed

A Novel

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Milk Fed

Written by: Melissa Broder
Narrated by: Melissa Broder
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Named a Best Book of the Year by Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, Time, Esquire,BookPage, and more

This darkly hilarious and “delicious new novel that ravishes with sex and food” (The Boston Globe) from the acclaimed author of The Pisces and So Sad Today is a “precise blend of desire, discomfort, spirituality, and existential ache” (BuzzFeed).

Rachel is twenty-four, a lapsed Jew who has made calorie restriction her religion. By day, she maintains an illusion of existential control, through obsessive food rituals, while working as an underling at a Los Angeles talent management agency. At night, she pedals nowhere on the elliptical machine. Rachel is content to carry on subsisting—until her therapist encourages her to take a ninety-day communication detox from her mother, who raised her in the tradition of calorie counting.

Rachel soon meets Miriam, a zaftig young Orthodox Jewish woman who works at her favorite frozen yogurt shop and is intent upon feeding her. Rachel is suddenly and powerfully entranced by Miriam—by her sundaes and her body, her faith and her family—and as the two grow closer, Rachel embarks on a journey marked by mirrors, mysticism, mothers, milk, and honey.

“A ruthless, laugh-out-loud examination of life under the tyranny of diet culture” (Glamour), this novel blends humor and dark comedy with sharp insights into contemporary relationships. Broder tells a tale of appetites: physical hunger, sexual desire, spiritual longing, and the ways that we compartmentalize these so often interdependent instincts. Milk Fed is “riotously funny and perfectly profane” (Refinery 29) from “a wild, wicked mind” (Los Angeles Times). Fans of coming-of-age fiction and literary fiction alike will find this novel filled with emotional depth and wit. Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction World Literature Middle East Funny Witty
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by far one of my favorite books
I am not an author, let alone one as talented as the author of this novel - so I don't have the words.
just read it...or I guess in this case, listen.

SOO GOOD

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Melissa Broder is such a talented writer, can't wait for more! This was such an interesting story

Talented

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Had just read dietland, and as with that one, I'll be thinking about this one for a while! Even though it was sometimes a bit oedipal for me, I still enjoyed it and found it thought-provoking, especially the insights on women having to "earn" our existence by existing less through suppression of desires. Also laughed out loud a few times!

Weird, funny, steamy, insightful

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I rarely give up on a book. I’m not a prude person but as a mom to two small kids I just couldn’t get past the mum-sex scene that the protagonist was fantasizing about. I’m a bisexual woman and honestly I didn’t think that was neither sexy nor appealing in any way. To top it up, I’m still breastfeeding so when she jerks off to being breastfed my her mother, it just made me wanna vomit. Sorry not sorry

I couldn’t finish it

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So raw, honest, funny, strange and touching all at once. I enjoyed the author narrating it in her elder millennial snark tone. For anyone with eating disorder history or body image issues, some of the content might be upsetting or triggering specifically at the beginning when she lists all her foods and rituals. Otherwise, enjoy!

So so good (but trigger warning for ED recovery!)

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