Cheat Day

March 22, 2021
Stratman debuts with a sweet, smart account of one woman’s attempt to add some spark and direction to her humdrum everyday. Kit, 34, is stuck in a rut: she can’t muster the nerve to quit a job managing her sister’s bakery in the same Brooklyn neighborhood where she grew up; she’s ambivalent about having kids; restless in a marriage to her well-intentioned, workaholic husband; and still mourning the death of the grandmother who raised her. To snap out of it, she reaches for a solution she’s tried many times before: a diet. This time she embarks on the 75-day Radiant Regimen, her most ambitious wellness overhaul yet. But as she starts to master her food cravings, she begins to indulge in her attraction to a carpenter, leading to an intense affair, and the derailment of her self-makeover. Soon, Kit, realizing the “lucky” life she leads, must acknowledge her failures and open up about impulses if she want to save her marriage: “What I know now is there is no recipe for a clean marriage.” The uneasy relationship Kit has with her various appetites is at the heart of things, and the narrative’s success rests on her wry, insightful narration, which expounds on the inanities of the daily calculus of diet planning with hilariously cringy detail. This is a treat.

April 15, 2021
Kit stormed out of her job at her sister's bakery for the last time a couple months ago, or so she claims. But when Melissa calls, desperate to have her back at Sweet Cheeks, Kit barely resists. They need her to oversee some construction during off-hours, and, truth be told, they're lost without her management skills. Kit's return to the bakery coincides with her starting the Radiant Regimen, most recent in a long line of special diets that Kit's sweet workaholic husband, David, is always game to try with her. Enter Matt, the tall, tattooed carpenter building the bakery's new shelves, who is sexy in the way only a smart, charming, unattached man who works with his hands can be. Stratman's Brooklyn-set debut is an incredibly likable novel of hungers controlled and liberated, and marriage's gray areas--which is to say, most of marriage's areas. Sympathetic, sincere, fiery, and frustrating, Kit is as real a narrator as they come. Readers will happily follow her journey to figuring out what she wants, or if she even needs to know.

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May 1, 2021
A diet-obsessed woman has an affair and reevaluates her life. In Stratman's debut novel, perpetual dieter and job quitter Kit embarks on an extreme diet--and an affair. At 34, Kit is living in her childhood duplex in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, with her kind but inattentive husband, David. She works as the general manager of Sweet Cheeks, her sister's bakery, and is constantly searching for the wellness regimen that will bring her fulfillment. As she embarks on the Radiant Regimen, an ultrastrict 75-day diet, Kit meets Matt--the handsome carpenter hired to build shelves for the bakery--and they quickly begin a passionate affair. The more Kit lies and cheats, the less she eats. Along with stellar characterization, Stratman beautifully (and often with humor) captures the complexities of long-term relationships and the ways deprivation and indulgence are intricately intertwined. The novel explores the trappings of diet culture in nuanced and honest ways. Kit, who has always believed a smaller body would bring her true happiness, realizes the very thing she's chasing is contributing to her angst--but she can't bring herself to stop or break the cycle. In the thick of her affair and while on a rare night out with David (at a Radiant-compliant restaurant), Kit thinks about how her past self would marvel at what she has, yet she's still miserable: "Forcing myself and my husband to skip the wine, to order an inferior version of the good food. Nothing's ever enough, and you never get away from yourself." The ending is less explosive than introspective, but it feels true to the novel. Whether readers love Kit or hate her, there's something wonderful in the way she finally begins to embrace her life and put effort into her work and relationships instead of just her fad diets. A funny, wise, and winning debut.

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