In the plucky Cheat Day, Liv Stratman's debut novel, fad dieter Kit Altmann is determined to stick with her strict new 75-day eating regimen. But while she's trying to resist alluring foods, she's faced with an even more tantalizing temptation that won't fit on a plate.
On Valentine's Day and at Kit's insistence, she and her workaholic husband begin the Radiant Regimen: "It's an intensive wellness program," Kit informs her sister, Melissa, who believes that " 'program' is just a culty word for 'diet.' " A further test of Kit's willpower: she has just returned to her job as floor manager at Sweet Cheeks, the Brooklyn bakeshop that Melissa co-owns. But when Sweet Cheeks hires a tall, tattooed carpenter to build new shelves, Kit finds him more seductive than food: "I was married to a man I really loved. But for some reason, in the company of Matt Larsson, I felt my unhappiness--and my constant hunger--subside."
A chief satisfaction of the novel is the way it allows readers to peek around Kit's unreliable narration at what's really going on in her life. While Stratman overuses eye-rolling and other gestures to signal characters' attitudes, Cheat Day's mitigating pleasures include its ready humor and its fully fleshed portrait of Brooklyn's Bay Ridge neighborhood as it tries to maintain its identity while the hipsters move in. Despite its urban setting, Cheat Day has a leisurely pace, with Stratman taking her time to assemble her mise en place but finally delivering a fully baked, flavorful treat. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer