Milk Fed

Rachel organises her days around strict rules about food, finding a fragile sense of control in restriction while working at a Los Angeles talent agency. Her therapist's suggestion that she temporarily stop speaking to her mother disrupts a relationship deeply entangled with those habits. Then Rachel meets Miriam, an Orthodox Jewish woman working at her favourite frozen-yogurt shop. Attraction draws Rachel toward not only Miriam but also the food, faith and family life surrounding her. The connection makes her carefully maintained boundaries harder to sustain. Melissa Broder's novel explores physical appetite alongside sexual desire and spiritual longing, following a woman whose attempt to manage herself through rigid limits is challenged by wanting more than she knows how to permit.