Synopsis

Twenty-four-year-old Rachel, an irreverent former Jew from Los Angeles, lives a life defined by routine. Day to day, she maintains an illusory sense of control through compulsive exercise and calorie restriction. When her therapist suggests 90 days of no contact with her toxic mother, she becomes enamored with an Orthodox woman named Miriam, who happens to work at her neighborhood frozen yogurt shop. While Rachel is hell-bent on maintaining her self-destructive tendencies, Miriam insists on feeding her. As their relationship blossoms, the narrator embarks on a quest of self-discovery, hoping to find closure with her fraught and traumatic upbringing.

Review

This sapphic “examination of life under the tyranny of diet culture,” according to Glamour Magazine, is incredibly surreal in its narration, delving into appetites in their many forms - the desire for physical sustenance, sexual intimacy, and a higher power. In contrast to the prosaic diction is an amalgamation of dark humor, comic expletives, and pertinent cultural insights, all of which culminate in devastatingly beautiful moments of betrayal, devastation, and reckoning for the main character. Ultimately, it speaks to the hidden desires of the modern woman by zooming in on her internal strife. It’s a story of letting go - of the misbeliefs that hold us back and the healing fantasies we attach to nonreciprocal relationships. A warning to sensitive readers: Melissa Broder’s language can be graphic.