Cover Image: Cheat Day

Cheat Day

Pub Date:   |   Archive Date:

Member Reviews

A well-written, fast read - main character Kit isn’t perfect but her flaws make her seem like an actual living breathing human who doesn’t always make the right choices. She’s working at her sister’s bakery, more or less happily married, obsessive about her eating programs (don’t call them diets!), and then BAM she’s having an affair with the carpenter her sister hired to install new shelving at the bakery.

Was this review helpful?

Cheat Day shows one woman’s journey through the completion of a particularly difficult regimen and how deeply the mindset required to do so affects everyone in her life. Tamar Haspel, the Washington Post writer urging us not to so identify with our diets, cautions: “Sure, elevating diet to be part of your identity is bad for discourse. But the reason it’s bad for discourse is that it’s bad for people engaging in the discourse; once you define yourself by your diet, it gets much harder to see evidence clearly…. Once a particular belief gets associated with something you consider essential about yourself — your values, your affiliations, your identity — confirmation bias kicks into high gear, and your chance of figuring out if your one thing is wrong plummets.”


For Kit, the main character of Cheat Day, it’s not just her inability to use hindsight to see how her past with previous dieting didn’t work (she won’t even let her friends and family call them “diets”), but her inability to see anything that’s going on outside of herself. It’s impressive that Kit is so self-aware that she can clue the reader in on how she will inevitably have an affair, for example, because so much else in her life seems so obscured even from herself. The entirety of the book is a slow reveal of who Kit is, leading up to the confrontation she will have to have with herself in order to figure out if that skinny, miserable adulterer is who she wants to be. And I couldn’t get enough. I’m always here for women behaving “badly,” leaning into their impulses and unlikeability. We are all Kit at some point.

Was this review helpful?

I want to thank Netgalley and the author for gifting me the ebook. Interesting story. It was not really my thing. But other people might enjoy it.

Was this review helpful?

Sometimes I think about just how much willpower it takes to get through the day. Getting up, showering, getting to work, plowing through a to-do list, going to the gym, saying no to fattening foods… teeth brushing and flossing, going to bed early, only to start it all over again. Psychologists say that willpower is a resource that can be depleted, and using too much of it in one area makes it harder to control another—that’s why some folks who are religious about exercise also eat terribly. There’s only so many times a person can say no before they give in.

I was reminded of these willpower studies while reading Liv Stratman’s debut novel, Cheat Day, which came out last spring in hardcover and was just released in paperback. In her mid-30s and married to her college sweetheart, Kit has never been happy with her body. When she decides to embark on a 75-day eating program called the Radiance Regime, she knows it’s going to be twice as hard since she’s also gone back to work at her sister’s bakery. Determined to stick to the program no matter what, Kit isn’t nearly as steadfast when it comes to her marriage. Enamored of the carpenter her sister hired to create new shelves at the bakery, Kit quickly falls into an affair with him.

For the rest of the review, click on the link below.

Was this review helpful?

I don’t generally like affair novels, but Cheat Day was well written and realistic. Kit was a hard character to like, but the bakery staff / supporting characters made up for it. I’ll likely pick up a future Liv Stratman book :)
CW: eating disorder/ body dysmorphia
Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for this eARC in exhange for an honest review!

Was this review helpful?

Cheat Day by Liv Stratman was a great story that was easy to read and finish in a day. The storyline was entertaining and thought provoking at times.

Was this review helpful?

I finished this book with mixed feelings. The main character, Kit, was difficult to like. She is self absorbed and quit with mean to those who love her. She has no ambition and takes for granted what she does have. The ending was no resolution. She stays with her husband but thinks either she or he could find someone else. I liked all the other characters. The only thing I could relate to her about was always thinking about food, but unlike she diets, mine never work.

Was this review helpful?

Unfortunately I did not love this book, I think primarly because the genre is a little light for me. I think that if you love lighter reads with quirky characters then you would really like this. It explores a shaky marriage and diet culture. Liv Stratman writes well and the story is clear and well thought out. However, the characters were not all that likable.

Was this review helpful?

Witty and well written. I enjoy Liv's perspective and sense of humor. I'm looking forward to future work's from this author.

Was this review helpful?

I really enjoyed this novel. And while i did find the MC's life choices questionable and I couldn't relate to her specifically, I was not turned off by that because the story overall was very good and I was never bored. I really did want to know what was going to happen.
I find some readers dislike books simply because they cannot relate to a character or wouldn't behave the same way, which confuses me because we can't relate to every single person in real life yet we have friends and family that we love that are very different from us. Yet we continue to love them.
That rant aside, it was very refreshing to read a contemporary novel (I could relate to the modern lifestyle) and the story was enjoyable. I would read more by this author.

Was this review helpful?

What a fun and quick read… nothing too exciting, but I still thought it was fun. It was a blast with these characters and omg that cover is so great. I loved the premise and would still recommend it.

Was this review helpful?

Was drawn right into the story thought the book was well written entertaining.Ivread the book in two days really enjoyed.#netgalley #scribnerbooks.

Was this review helpful?

I liked the way this book was written. I felt it really showed us what Kit was thinking and how her obsession with eating came about. I hated the cheating part for sure. I had gone into this book thinking the cheating was on a diet, not a marriage. I almost gave up on it when I realized it, but stuck with it and am glad I did. Neither of the main characters were likeable and I felt sorry for her husband for having to put up with her and her obsessions only to be paid back by her cheating on him.

Was this review helpful?

I thought this was a very funny and smart book. I devoured it in two days and was sad when it was over.

Was this review helpful?

This is a pretty classic case of you either love it or hate it; and I loved CHEAT DAY. But I don't really know why? Yes, it's about an older millennial in Brooklyn, having depression and a mid(ish)-life crisis. It's about obsession, and love, and siblings, and not having a life purpose (though does anyone?). I suppose those kinds of books are putty in my hands because this was a quick page-turner for me, though it is dark and sad and no one in the book is particularly likable. However, Stratman's writing is very likable and this story about cheating on your husband for no particular reason other than perhaps boredom is rife with tension and clearly will pull out a strong opinion from any reader.

The main character, told in first person, is Kit who works at her sister's bakery and is, by all accounts, a highly intelligent person (though she is the only one in her life that doesn't think so). She is also obsessed with fad diets, which she instead calls programs. It is clear that she has a severe eating disorder, and this could be hard to watch go down for some. The book isn't wrapped up in a neat bow, but like life, it is left open ended and the book is an interesting slice of life for what Brooklyn is (or, was in 2016 specifically.) This is my kind of fast and easy read; one that is also heavy in nature and polarizing.

Was this review helpful?

I wanted to love this one more, and I appreciate getting a review copy in advance, but this book loses its hold multiple times along the way.. I wanted to like the main character, but found it really hard to immerse into her struggles with dieting and trying to fix herself, find her place, and get her marriage pulled out of its rocky place. When I read a book, I want to spend time in that fictional world with those characters. In this case, with Cheat Day, I could only keep returning to the pages out of a sense of hope, not satisfaction. I hoped the characters would rescue themselves, that the chaos of their world would settle down. I get that drama makes for an energetic storyline, but this one feels like it threw too much against the wall to see what would stick. That said, there is a good amount to like here, and if you tend to love chaotic stories where semi- (or wholly) unlikeable characters redeem themselves after taking you on a ride through their neuroses and some questionable choices, you'll find some good swerves and moments here. It's a climb, but this story does deliver some nice moments. Know your preference for high-maintenance characters with lots of drama, and venture here if you love rocky roads and eventual redemption.

Was this review helpful?

Absolutely hated the main character of this book. I made it about 20% and stopped reading. Kit was annoying to the point of exhausting. and completely entitled without even acknowledging it. After reading several reviews with spoilers I am glad I didn't continue.

Was this review helpful?

I wanted to like this book but never got there. From the description, I thought it would be humorous and relatable. Instead, it's bleak and the main character is not only unlikable, she take responsibility for her actions or make any attempt at redemption. The writing isn't remarkable in any way. This was a miss for me all around, I wouldn't recommend it.

Was this review helpful?

I’m judging the L.A. Times 2020 and 2021 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.

Astute. Funny. Seems like the type of novel that would really adapt well to film. Woogie—our large, temperamental cat—perched on a stepstool between the small kitchen and the dining room, which we never used. Woogie observed us, always as though watching a TV series he didn’t much like anymore but felt the need to see through to the finale.

Was this review helpful?

I enjoyed this book. I would not be able to use it to teach with, but I would add it to my reading shelf.

Was this review helpful?