A review by carojust
Milk Fed by Melissa Broder

emotional funny reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I love Melissa Broder's writing so much. "Milk Fed" was a dizzying experience, being volleyed between sapphic sexcapades, mommy issues, an intense eating disorder and a complex relationship with religion. 

The biggest, most flagged trigger warning is the eating disorder content. You're punched in the face with it right away, and I saw myself in too much of it. Is it strange to say this felt refreshing, cathartic? So many of us have this experience, and in reading all its calculative detail, I cried for all of us. 

Perhaps the content that surprised me most wasn't the sex (honestly not as pearl-clutching as reviews make it out to be?), but our narrator's hope to find mothering, acceptance and comfort with an Orthodox Jewish family, and the conversation about Palestine. I won't get too spoily here, but the way she finds her voice here, an important scene. 

You'll like this is if you're into troubled and funny narrators, themes about sexuality, acceptance, faith, and don't mind the triggering and sexually graphic content.

I'm off to read "The Pisces"!
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