What did I just read??? I’m not sure, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t like it. Well, let me say that it wasn’t for me. I was uncomfortable the whole way through. Not in the good uncomfortable,


And no, it wasn’t the sex. I’m fine reading hot and steamy sex scenes, but this was like being in a self absorbed, neurotic person’s head 24/7. There was no escape. I guess that’s the point. Rachel could never escape her own issues, but boy, I felt like I was sucked down this black hole of self indulgent, poor me psychosis where who do we blame but the mother, of course. Rachel is stuck in her life because her mommy wasn’t nice. She told her to not to get fat, lose weight and well, welcome to having a Jewish mother.

I didn’t enjoy the main character. Rachel seemed stuck throughout the whole novel so it became very repetitive. She is obsessive about counting her food calories, has body dysmorphia among other issues. She meets Miriam, an Orthodox jewish woman who works in a frozen yogurt shop. She becomes obsessed with how Miriam enjoys her food, then she becomes obsessed with Miriam. Obviously this is a relationship doomed to fail.

I couldn’t wait to finish this book. It was a slog to the end. The ending didn’t have any redeeming qualities. This one was definitely not for me.

Milk Fed by Melissa Broder is a novel that centres on the life of a bisexual Jewish woman who has an intimate relationship with food. So to say it’s a unique work is possibly understating the obvious.

Rachel is in her mid twenties and calorie counts to the point of obsession, In her formative years her mother always helicoptered around her when it came to food, so Rachel’s eyeing of everything that goes into her mouth is certainly family based. In a therapy session she is encouraged to go on a detox from her mother…no calls, texts, any type of interaction. While this is great mentally, it also opens a door to her: caloric freedom. Her healthy thin body is a prison that she may be able to escape.

Rachel visits a nearby fro-yo place daily and always has the same repetitive order of the same sized cup. Once her mother-detox starts, she happens to return to the store to see a new employee manning the machines. She ignores Rachel’s requests to stop the fro-yo machine at the typical size and instead lets it get higher and higher each time she visits. Then she starts to (egads!) add toppings. A particularly wonderful scene plays out when Rachel takes her purchase outside to enjoy her sprinkles sensually in peace. Broder does a great job in describing how Rachel tongues the sprinkles and the towering yoghurt, starting her decline into a sinful joy of food, sex, and religion.

I can’t say I ever thought I’d read a book that would delve into food porn, human sexuality that heavily spotlights the main charaters bisexuality, the pain of growing up in an overbearing parental relationship AND Israel-Palenstine issues. These are all touched on in a staccato short-chapter fashion that keeps the pace fast and makes for a quick read.

Milk Fed is a quirky novel but not laugh out loud in abundance. Quite the contrary, I feel it’s a novel full of hurt and wonderment, love and an attempt at healing. The ending is quick yet fulfilling and, in the spirit of Rachel, still leaves you wanting to get another piece.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing a copy for review.

I learned a lot from this book and it was also a VERY interesting story. I would like to note and point out that this book has a LOT of open-door romance scenes so prepare yourself!

Trigger warnings: disordered eating, parental abuse

I was excited for this book as I’ve been a fan of Melissa Border’s past work and was looking forward to seeing her newest writing project. While this book wasn’t for me, I do appreciate what she was trying to convey, the overall themes, and the way it was being delivered.

For me personally, I had a hard time with this book because it lacked a solid plot. It read more as an introspective narrative for one specific character, which was difficult for me to get into. I did love the character’s unique traits, her struggle with food and body image, and the queer representation. However, I found it exhausting reading about her internal struggles and battle with mental health. It’s hard enough to deal with my own wellbeing right now, so trying to follow along with someone else’s, albeit fictional, was too much.

I know many people who would love this book, and hope that they’re able to read it. Thank you, Simon & Schuster Canada, for a digital ARC of this book via NetGalley. Milk Fed came out on February 2, 2021, and is available wherever books are sold.

Rachel's relationship with the world is based on denial. Until she meets Miriam, who awakens her lust for food, life and especially Miriam. By taking a "detox" from her Mother, Rachel finds the space to conquer her eating disorder and pursue what she really wants in life. Funny and touching.

Rachel is a quirky, bisexual, lapsed Jew and stand-up comic who is obsessed with counting calories. She has obsessive food rituals and does strenuous exercise; her whole day is planned around them. Her mother was similarly fixated on food and calories and restricted food for her as a young girl. Her mother continues to this day, even though she lives further away to call her and torment her about her body. Everything changes when her therapist recommends a ninety-day communication detox from her mother. She meets Miriam at her favourite fro-yo shop, a zaftig young Orthodox Jewish woman, who is intent on feeding her. Rachel is drawn in by her sundaes, her body, her faith and her family and begins a journey of acceptance.

This was such a unique book in comparison to what I typically read. It really educated me on what goes through someone's mind when they are fixated on food and calories, and sadly I was able to relate on some level. As a society, we are obsessed with thinness and eating "healthy," but what does that really even mean? I really liked the look into some Jewish traditions; what a celebration of Shabbat might look like and how religion can also deeply affect how people feel and behave. I enjoyed following along with Rachel's realizations, because honestly, most of them would apply to any reader, too.

CW: eating disorders, body dysmorphia

Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada and NetGalley for the eGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed Broder’s latest novel. The beginning is especially engrossing, filled with details of 24-year-old Rachel’s eating disorder, and the anxiety she experiences as a result. Descriptions of calorie-counting and Rachel’s restrictive diet may be triggering to certain readers, but also reveal a world of constant mental calculations and the exhaustion that comes with constantly keeping one’s body under surveillance. For Rachel, this restrictive diet and desire for control emerged as a result of her mother’s constant comments about her body throughout childhood. As Rachel takes a “detox” from her mother, she meets friendly yogurt shop worker, Miriam, who shows Rachel small kindnesses and encourages her to expand her small, claustrophobic world. Little by little, Rachel begins to indulge in fulfilling her many desires, both culinary and sensual. As her relationship with Miriam turns romantic, Rachel begins to embrace her bisexuality, which was similarly suppressed in childhood, and stops looking for so much approval from the various mother figures in her life. Although at first it seems Rachel’s every fantasy has been met, Broder explores how Rachel must contend with the reality of dating Miriam as the three-dimensionality of her character emerges. While there’s an undercurrent to the book which grapples with Orthodoxy Judaism and a recurring image of the golem figure, I found this conceit somewhat auxiliary, but perhaps other readers will feel differently. Ultimately, this is a coming-of-age story told with empathy and a sense of humour, which captures the complexities of desire, trauma, and sexuality.

A fascinating novel from the mind of Melissa Broder that delves into eating disorders, familial trauma, and the nature of desire. MILK FED finds LA office worker Rachel ritualistically restricting her calories, a side effect of her mother’s fat-shaming throughout adolescence. When Rachel meets the enigmatic Miriam, an Orthodox Jewish woman, she begins a journey in the pleasures of eating to abundance. While Rachel’s journey is told with intelligence and wit, the joy of the book comes in its details, described with precision, exuberance and empathy. As Rachel limits contact with her mother and devotes herself to her friendship with Miriam, she begins to honour the desires of an authentic self that was denied her in childhood. In doing so, she discovers newfound freedom, and a large portion of the book is devoted to Rachel indulging in her every culinary desire. Rachel's relationship with Miriam soon turns romantic, and with the erotic chapters that follow comes a slight stagnation in the narrative. This may echo Rachel’s own disillusionment as she is forced to contend with the realities of her fantasies — including her discomfort with Israeli occupation, something at odds with Miriam’s Orthodoxy. Despite the potential gravity of this epiphany and the earlier chapters devoted to Rachel's eating disorder, MILK FED is fast-paced and fairly light without too much preciousness about creating elegantly crafted prose. Instead, there's a seductive feel to this book, full of sensual pleasures and Broder's sense of humour that makes it compulsively readable.

Just finished reading MILK FED by Melissa Broder. Thanks to simonschusterca from my ARC copy in exchange for an honest review. Official publication date is February 2nd, 2021.

Rachel is a 24 year old Jewish woman, who has made calorie restriction her religion...instead of her actual religion. She pulls off a normal appearance until it is time to eat. Rachel is content to carry on her boring unfulfilling and unhealthy life...Until her therapist ask her to take a 90-day detox from her mother, who raised her in this tradition of calorie counting, and watching her appearance.

Early into her detox, Rachel meets Miriam, an Orthodox Jewish woman who works at her favorite frozen yogurt shop and is very interested in getting her to try new things and change up her routine. Rachel soon falls head over heels for Miriam sundaes, body, family and innocence.

A weirdly funny, strangely addictive story about food, sex, god and understanding your body. You will never look at fro-yo the same ever again!
(⭐⭐⭐💫/5)

Have you ever read a book where you are like "WTF did I just read?", but you kinda liked it, but your still not 100% sure? That was this one for me.

“I felt like another kind of creature altogether—some new being I had invoked. If I was a woman, I was not me as I’d known myself, but a woman with more courage than I thought I’d had. I was a woman of impulse, a woman of instinct. I was a woman of pleasure and a woman of confidence.”

I devoured that book. This is my first Melissa Broder. Her writing style is very straightforward, which could make for a light read, but the content was often quite heavy.

Major content warning for eating disorders. To me, that was really the main focus of the book, but I guess that’s subjective; religion, bisexuality and her relationship with her mother also have important parts in the story.

When you’re writing from the perspective of someone with an eating disorder (and, more specifically, anorexia), I can see it being hard to depict the relationship with food and weight accurately, while making sure not to veer into fatphobic tropes. I’m still wondering whether that line was crossed at times, bordering on fetishizing. I’m not sure I’m knowledgeable enough on the subject to say with certainty. It’s also hard to talk about it without revealing important plot points. But I’m curious to read other opinions on that.

But yeah, there was almost an infectious quality to the book, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and always wanted to go back to it, see what would happen next. Just for that, I would recommend it, especially if you’re looking for a fast-paced read.

MILK FED by Melissa Boder was alright. We follow Rachel, a young woman in LA, as she navigates her life with an eating disorder while pursuing romance. The entire first chapter describes Rachel’s intense food rituals. Readers please proceed with caution if you find anything related to eating disorders triggering. It’s a major focus of this book along with graphic sexuality. I read this book quite quickly as all the chapters were short so I did like the fast pace but I felt like the issues brought up in the book were never fully resolved. I liked the writing in the way things were described but when I got to the end of the book I thought that’s it?

Milk Fed is a raw and very graphic journey of Rachel coming to terms with her relationship with her mother, eating habits, religion, sexuality, and ultimately, herself. Even though body positivity is mostly celebrated nowadays, the old habit of obsessing over one's weight and how others perceive oneself dies hard. I am by no means obsessed with my weight or eating habits, but Milk Fed shined a spotlight to how much I actually do pay attention to them.
p.s. I hope the publisher will/has included an eating disorder trigger warning for those who are affected.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for a honest review.

I started reading Milkfed because I am familiar with Melissa Broder’s hilariously relatable So Sad Today Twitter account, but this book is not what I expected.

Milk Fed comes across as the lesbian version of a man saying “she made me a changed man” about a woman.
Though it is an interesting enough story, it was hard to finish because of how unlikable I find the protagonist. She suffers from her own demons, which are relatable, but that doesn’t excuse her from being an asshole. She has objectifying, demeaning thoughts about everyone around her; she uses people for her own gain; she recognizes the limits of her love interest, but still pushes past them at times; and her proclamations of “love” for this person present as fat-fetishization.

I’m not sure what the point of this book is (purely enjoyment? a journey to self-love?) but personally, I find it sort of insensitive.

Then again, maybe the whole point IS to turn the tables in an attempt to highlight all of this (which is the way women are often treated by men).