I have a co-worker who categorizes all books as “good” or “weird”. After reading Milk Fed, all I could think about was how it would fit perfectly in her weird category.

Rachel is a Jewish girl in her 20s living in LA who works for (what I would view as) your typical Silicon Valley type media company. She seeks help from a therapist for her toxic relationship with her mother. But it’s clear from the start that Rachel has a pretty bad eating disorder. Her ED is not brought up in therapy but is constantly talked about throughout the book.

Rachel quickly meets Miriam, a employee at the frozen yogurt store Rachel frequently visits. On first glance it seems the Rachel is repulsed by Miriam, but then quickly grows to worship her to a level of obsession. They dive into a relationship(?) that is borderline toxic and unhealthy.

This is my first exploration of Melissa Broder’s novel, there is no doubt she’s an extraordinary writer. She extremely explicit in her descriptions of food and sex. The way she details Rachel fantasizing about frozen yogurt made me crave a large cup of it and I don’t even like frozen yogurt.

Milk Fed is a raw, real, and witty exploration of sexuality, mental illness, longing, sexual exploration, and what it means to be Jewish.