Melissa Broder

This is a unique, semi-serious/semi-tragic romp through a love affair based on frozen yogurt and in the breaking of religious boundaries. Rachel is 24 and living with an extremely exacting eating disorder to keep herself thin and immune to her mother's constant criticism and her comparisons to the "really thin" women of LA. At a yogurt shop for her tiny daily indulgence, she meets Miriam, an Orthodox Jewish daughter of the owner, who is lusciously fat (her self-description) and just gaw-guss show more to Rachel. They fall in love over kosher Chinese food and even weather an introduction to Miriam's large family, until the matriarch sniffs out Rachel's erotic attraction to Miriam. Rachel keeps eating and she and Miriam enjoy their erotic encounters to the benefit of both women. Both the sex and the food are voluptuously described, and there's a hilarious undercurrent (Rachel does standup comedy on the side) that makes this novel great big oversized fun. show less

WOWW!!

my first five stars fiction novel. ok. let's sit with this for a minute.


OKAY!!! first of all, i don't think this book is for everyone. it is certainly very polarizing and has a couple offputting scenes. i also think that this book found me at the right time

going into this, i thought that it would be a merman love story. me? i love fantasy romance with Monster Lovers. and yet. i have never been so happy to be wrong, and instead, to be met with CONTEMPORARY FICTION!!! but not just any show more contemporary fiction, no, THE BEST CONTEMPORARY FICTION NOVEL I'VE READ! /THIS/ is what i want when i seek out contemporary fiction, i never find it. i am never so satisfied. everything i wanted ****** ********* to be but it wasn't

this book was so interesting. there's just so much to chew on. i love how she explored consumerist capitalist culture, the main character's toxic self indulgence, i love how she processes her breakup and how she compares her life with her thesis on sappho!! and hookup culture? existential dread? and MERMEN?

i will leave my hangups in the spoilers below:



1. dog die :( was it necessary?

2. the scene where she picks her shit out with her finger made me feel sick

3. ultimately i still don't know how i feel about the ending? i kind of wanted her to go with the merman and die lol



i will be thinking about this for weeks!!! and i will stop judging books by their covers, because her other two books have covers that offput me. But Now I Know show less

The Pisces features a mentally unwell protagonist who spends the entire novel attempting to justify to herself her complete disregard towards everyone and everything. The writing does a wonderful job of plopping you in her head and forcing you to marinate in her unhealthy juices. The sex scenes are horrifically unsexy, and the main character treats all her friends and her dog like complete garbage. If that doesn't sound like something you could enjoy reading, don't pick up this book. show more

Personally, I found the depiction of depression moving, the portrayal of her disordered thinking incisive and realistic, and the magical realism elements surreal and creative. It was a gripping read which gave me plenty to consider about personal responsibility, intellectual ambition, interpersonal relationships, and mental health. If you were to use this book as a handbook, the advice would be to do the opposite of everything that this main character does, but I enjoyed experiencing and reflecting upon the nightmarish world that the main character created for herself. show less

This is a little more um...explicit/erotic than books I typically choose, but it had stellar reviews and I have to say the concept and the writing are phenomenal. So a little prudish discomfort/squirm is on me. The way Broder describes protagonist Rachel's relationship to food, her mother, other people is insightful and intuitive. Rachel lives in Hollywood where she works in a nondescript job for a talent agency and sidelines in stand-up comedy on the side. This is the aspect of her I wish show more we saw more of. She is also a compulsive calorie counter with a past of eating issues and mommy issues. She is on a detox from calls from her mother and that past influence on her body image is truly sad and disturbing. She describes: "My mother was what the universe was really about. My mother the sun, my mother the rules, my mother, god herself! My mother the high priestess of food, the religion of our household abstain, abstain, abstain!" (7) She has a lot of recovery to do and with the help of her therapist has made progress. In her final session, she creates a clay replica of herself that is bloated, and disproportionately big and when she meets a 'zaftig' woman working in the fro-yo shop who believes more is better, Rachel considers she may have created a golem. Miriam is an Orthodox Jew, while Rachel is non-practicing, but under Miriam's self-acceptance, loving family and initial friendship, Rachel begins to let food and pleasure back into her life. She also finds she is sexually attracted to her and they start a relationship that changes Miriam in a way parallel to the way Rachel has changed. There is a theme here of hunger and appetite and how to fulfill those in ways that are safe/healthy for self and others. show less