Reading, Writing, and Me

Milk Fed  by Melissa Broder  TW: Eating Disorder Buy Milk Fed via Bookshop! This is an affiliate link which means I may receive a small commission from your purchase at no cost to you. Thank you for supporting the blog! Overview: Rachel struggles with her relationship with her mom and with food and with her sexuality. She doesn't particularly like her job, which is the brand of fancy LA office job some people drool over. She's not impressed by the talent at her agency, and she'd rather be a full time stand-up comic, but no one really cares about her sets. Rachel is wound up in a million directions, but she's working to untangle the knots. Still, progress takes time and is frustrating and causes pain along the way. Overall: 4 Characters: 3.5 Rachel has a very regimented life. Her eating disorder gives her a sense of control as she meticulously plans her day's food out. It gives her a sense of order, as destructive as it is. That is until her world starts to shift, li

Sorrow and Bliss  by Meg Mason TW: Suicidal Thoughts Overview: Martha is unhappy a lot of the time. Nothing's quite worked out right. Her career is a nonevent. She doesn't want to have children. She's often on the outs with her family, except her sister, but she's preoccupied with lots of kids to raise. Martha has been married twice, neither time happily. At 40, she's feeling lost on what she has to show for her life and what she'll do next. Overall: 3 Characters: 3 The characters are all much more developed and compelling in the first half of the book. Really, everything about this book was better in the first half. Despite it moving through time in a nonlinear fashion, the Martha portrayed at the beginning of the book feels like an entirely different character than by the end of the story, and not in a good way.  The auxiliary characters are developed well and add much needed context and clarity to the story. Martha's extended family play a large role, and