I had to look at the front cover a few times while reading this to remind myself that it is a novel and not a memoir. It really, really reads like a memoir. So much so that I wonder if it is coded as such in order to protect her family.
This is a book about infidelity vs polyamory, can external partners be used as a way for a couple to grow closer, boundaries, guilt, and falling in love.
Written in first person, the narrator’s husband suggests a slightly open marriage to include kissing. She connects with another man, David, and has what many would call an “emotional affair.” It is messy and hard to read at times, and the main characters come across as pretty selfish and unreasonable. It brings up questions of divorce and what makes a good marriage.
I don’t know much about polyamory, and it is very easy for my to be very judgmental about it. But I think that reading fiction makes us more empathetic, it forces us to see a situation from someone else’s eyes. While this book is well written and interesting at times, it’s hard to root for anyone. It’s none of my business if people want to have a different marriage than I do, that doesn’t threaten me. But the ending, to me, seemed like a persuasive essay in which the reader is trying to be talked into the dissolution of someone’s marriage.
This book breaks the 4th wall, somewhat. Why do we feel the need to create a good guy/bad guy narrative in other people’s marriages? This felt like pulling back the curtain and hearing someone’s 288 page explanation of their marriage. I understand the desire to do this, especially since so many people in our lives feel the need to editorialize.
I was reading with my hand over my eyes and peeking through my fingers.
Maybe go live your life and don’t explain it all to everyone. Maybe be okay with being the villain in someone else’s story.
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