Name: Cheat Day
ISBN: 9781982140540

Liv Stratman

Hungry in more ways than one, Kit, while on a seventy-five day cleanse, falls into a passionate affair with a carpenter, and to suppress the guilt of betraying her husband, adheres more and more strictly to the Radiant Regimen, pushing the diet, and her infidelity, to greater extremes.

A Novel

Cheat Day

Ariel Himboi

Cheat Day can be mistaken to compliment the plot in which our self absorbed, selfish, cruel MC attempts many diets where she inevitably fails them before she can complete them, until she starts to have an affair, losing her relationship with her husband while nearly accomplishing the one diet that is working for her. However, un-ironically, Cheat Day can refer to how often she has an affair with a carpenter who works at her sister’s bakery. 

I gave this three stars for two reasons only: One, the writing style is intriguing, I actually felt compelled to keep reading to see what happened next. Even when I started to despise the main character, I was eager to read more. Two, I thought the eating disorder wasn’t romanticized or handled in a way that is inappropriate or harmful. Other than that, I hated this book for one reason. The main character. 

Don’t get me wrong! I root for women who are done being in relationships that are in fact going south. I strongly believed our MC would get her shit together eventually. This character was a PRICK. Not just because she continuously cheats on her husband instead of communicating with him, she then goes on to HUMILIATE, DEMEAN, LIE and verbally abuse him! She treats him like garbage and makes him feel bad, asking for pity and forgiveness, and then running off to be with her side lover to make herself feel better, reminding herself that ( due to her new diet ) she is feeling and looking better. 

I can understand her mental health when it comes to the disorder and even when it comes to her anxiety and depression. What I cannot stand about this character is that she gets to pretend like nothing happened, her husband unaware, that she’s still in love with a man she used and then dumped like a piece of garbage like she treated her husband. 

I honestly believe cheating is an end deal, in my own opinion, it sets the rest of the relationship on a one way track to vanish-land. 

This MC cried and screamed and emotionally dragged everyone around her into a situation she had total control over every single scene. To top it off, in the end she still managed to have control over her husband by making him feel guilty despite trying to communicate with her. 

She is often verbally aggressive and cruel to her husband when they fight, often going chapters of ignoring, acting snide and abandoning him. 

The kicker? She leaves him when he admits to not going along with the diets... and somehow she thinks her cheating is acceptable because he works too much?

If you’re lonely, communicate. If you cant communicate, try, or get therapy or something. If that doesn’t work out, break up or figure it out. DO NOT CHEAT. At the end there isn’t a single consequence, and don’t tell me “but she lost a love she could have had”, that was the only negative to her cheating at the end. Otherwise, it was romanticized that at least her and her husband still loved each other. 

Man, never have I ever before, ever, did I root for the poor husband in a book. Ever. And that says something. 

This MC who I wont even mention her name because it makes me nauseous, was absolutely horrible in way too many aspects to forgive whatever mental health issue she had going on. Some things were just glossed over and it didn’t sit well with me. I cant get behind the idea, even if this might work for some older women who dream of just packing up and leaving to do whatever they want despite how it affects anybody else. It wasn’t me.

Cheat Day A Novel

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