In her electric fourth collection, Melissa Broder penetrates the itch of existence and explores numberless deaths: the annihilation of self, the bereavement of love, the destruction of fantasy, the transmutation, even, of our ideas of dying. One of the New Yorker's Books We Loved in 2016 What emerges is an infinite series of false endings—each a trap door containing the possibility for alchemy, rebirth, and renewal. Part elegy, part confessional, part battle cry, Last Sext confronts both eternal longing and the mystery of mortality, with language hot, primal, and dark, as Broder’s fans have come to love.
LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION “Bold, virtuosic, addictive, erotic – there is nothing like The Pisces. I have no idea how Broder does it, but I loved every dark and sublime page of it.” —Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter Lucy has been writing her dissertation on Sappho for nine years when she and her boyfriend break up in a dramatic flameout. After she bottoms out in Phoenix, her sister in Los Angeles insists Lucy dog-sit for the summer. Annika's home is a gorgeous glass cube on Venice Beach, but Lucy can find little relief from her anxiety — not in the Greek chorus of women in her love addiction therapy group, not in her frequent Tinder excursions, not even in Dominic the foxhound's easy affection. Everything changes when Lucy becomes entranced by an eerily attractive swimmer while sitting alone on the beach rocks one night. But when Lucy learns the truth about his identity, their relationship, and Lucy’s understanding of what love should look like, take a very unexpected turn. A masterful blend of vivid realism and giddy fantasy, pairing hilarious frankness with pulse-racing eroticism, THE PISCES is a story about falling in obsessive love with a merman: a figure of Sirenic fantasy whose very existence pushes Lucy to question everything she thought she knew about love, lust, and meaning in the one life we have.
I like to be filthy. I talk dirty for a living. But I never meet my clients. Not until now… Cole Hardcastle. He’s a hot-as-all-hell SEAL with a body to die for And a tongue as filthy as my own. But there’s a problem: His navy buddies signed him up to my sext line. He thinks I’m just an ordinary girl. And he’s got no idea he’s on a blind date with a professional phone sexter… Looks like I’ve got some explaining to do. But that can wait. We’re gonna dial the steam up to eleven, And I can enact my every last fantasy…
"Unapologetically intimate essays on sex, death, mental illness, and other taboos by poet and writer Melissa Broder, the creator of @sosadtoday."--From cover.
Named a Best Book of the Month by NYLON, Bustle, Alta, and Pittsburgh City Paper “Each line is a little heartbeat hurling down the abyss.” —Patricia Lockwood Featuring a new introduction from the author, Superdoom: Selected Poems brings together the best of Broder’s three cult out-of-print poetry collections—When You Say One Thing but Mean Your Mother, Meat Heart, and Scarecrone—as well as the best of her fourth collection, Last Sext. Embracing the sacred and the profane, often simultaneously, Broder gazes into the abyss and at the human body, with humor and heartbreak, lust and terror. Broder’s language is entirely her own, marked both by brutal strangeness and raw intimacy. At turns essayistic and surreal, bouncing between the grotesque and the transcendent, Superdoom is a must-have for longtime fans and the perfect introduction to one of our most brilliant and original poets.
Named a Best Book of the Year by Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, Time, Esquire, BookPage, and more This darkly hilarious and “delicious new novel that ravishes with sex and food” (The Boston Globe) from the acclaimed author of The Pisces and So Sad Today is a “precise blend of desire, discomfort, spirituality, and existential ache” (BuzzFeed). Rachel is twenty-four, a lapsed Jew who has made calorie restriction her religion. By day, she maintains an illusion of existential control, through obsessive food rituals, while working as an underling at a Los Angeles talent management agency. At night, she pedals nowhere on the elliptical machine. Rachel is content to carry on subsisting—until her therapist encourages her to take a ninety-day communication detox from her mother, who raised her in the tradition of calorie counting. Rachel soon meets Miriam, a zaftig young Orthodox Jewish woman who works at her favorite frozen yogurt shop and is intent upon feeding her. Rachel is suddenly and powerfully entranced by Miriam—by her sundaes and her body, her faith and her family—and as the two grow closer, Rachel embarks on a journey marked by mirrors, mysticism, mothers, milk, and honey. “A ruthless, laugh-out-loud examination of life under the tyranny of diet culture” (Glamour) Broder tells a tale of appetites: physical hunger, sexual desire, spiritual longing, and the ways that we compartmentalize these so often interdependent instincts. Milk Fed is “riotously funny and perfectly profane” (Refinery 29) from “a wild, wicked mind” (Los Angeles Times).
Brilliant, but plain scientist Becca Evans has always done everything she could to make her beautiful sister, Grace, happy. So, when Grace started entering beauty contests, Becca did everything she could to make sure her sister won. Now, she’s looking at another pageant—at a resort in the Caribbean. The prize? A date with America’s most eligible bachelor, Calum Price. For Grace, it would be the ultimate coup—landing a billionaire. Unfortunately, Calum seems to like Becca better... Still, she’s determined to help her sister win. Calum doesn’t have to know that she’s the brains behind the beauty, the voice behind the veil, the finger behind the sexting... But when things go too far, Becca must decide where her loyalty lies—with her sister...or the man she’s falling in love with. Let the games begin. Each book in the Tropical Temptation series is a STANDALONE story that can be enjoyed out of order. * Bonding Games * Secret Games * Bachelor Games * Dirty Games
Schools need to be able to regulate sexting, but at what point are administrators infringing on students' rights? Is teenage sexting a violation of child pornography laws? This book tackles these tough issues and others. In several states, teenagers who engage in "sexting" could be in violation of child pornography laws—and if convicted of such, teens could end up on sex offender lists with rapists and child molesters. The authors of this text examine this thorny issue, arguing that teenagers who have engaged in consensual sexting should not automatically be punished under child pornography laws. Equally important: the book presents in-depth analysis of the issue of school regulations on sexting pursuant to the Free Speech Clause. This book is the first volume devoted to the topic of consensual student sexting, and how the First Amendment may apply to this unique 21st-century phenomenon. It provides an overview of sexting laws in the United States and does a thorough job of discussing the First Amendment issues that all policymakers, educators, and child advocates should be aware of.
Her: Unstoppable, workaholic, driven force of nature. Him: The exact opposite of that. Phebe Stark needs a punching bag. No, on second thought, she needs a donut. No, on third thought, she needs to escape into a dark bar with a strong drink. She’s just been harassed, for the umpteenth time, by the slimy supervisor standing between her and a shattered glass ceiling at her high-pressure Atlanta firm. But then a tall, bearded, sexy lumberjack of a bartender saunters over, and suddenly Phebe knows she doesn’t need gin . . . she needs him. Brody Cantrell didn’t exactly intend to become a bartender. He planned to help out at his ailing uncle’s bar for a year, then get an advanced degree and rise to the top of his field. Instead, he got a Ph.D. in Real Life from his customers. Brody thinks he’s seen everything—until he meets Phebe Stark. And when he gets a load of her fearless sexting skills, he just has to see what’s under that power suit. Brody’s certain they’ll have a good time or two—nothing serious. Then again, all these steamy messages and breathless trysts have him seriously considering . . . Why not? This ebook includes an excerpt from another Loveswept title.