Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - Milk Fed

Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

caroisreading's review

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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alexandracpedro's review

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challenging emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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nancyalicerose's review

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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lupitaestela's review

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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8going80's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

The ED aspect of the book definitely made it uncomfortable to read at times as it makes you address your own relationship with food. Good book and easy to whiz through

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4m0r's review

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funny sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I don't know how to feel about this book
It was good, the 1st third anyway. In the second Broder Lost me, I feel like this is for a very specific audience and me not being part of the Jewish community didn't understand a single thing they said and the author didn't bother explaining it.

I wish the book had less of a Miriam-love base and explored more Rachel's mindset. The ED is barely talked about if not for mentioning she's afraid of being fat and how terrible her mother was (we learn about this all in the 1/3, later we have glimpses of it but is almost completely forgotten). Also her relationship with Miriam was weird, too surface leveled if you asked me.
I would have liked to see more the transition of Rachel after Miriam, because Broder gave us nothing. I feel like it's not what it promised to be, but still was good because it managed to make laugh.

Content Warnings