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Crush
When a husband asks his reluctant wife to consider what might be missing from their marriage, what follows surprises them both—sex, heartbreak and heart rekindling, and a rediscovered sense of all that is possible
She’s happy and settled and productive and content in her full life—a child, a career, an admirable marriage, deep friendships, happy parents, and a spouse she still loves. But when her husband urges her to address what the narrow labels of “husband� and “wife� force them to edit out of their lives, the very best kind of hell breaks loose.
Using the author’s personal experiences as a jumping-off point, Crush is about the danger and liberation of chasing desire, the havoc it can wreak, and most of all the clear sense of self one finds when the storm passes. Destined to become a classic novel of marriage, and tackling the big questions being asked about partnership in postpandemic relationships, Crush is a sharp, funny, seductive, and revelatory novel about holding on to everything it’s possible to love—friends, children, parents, passion, lovers, husbands, all of the world’s good books, and most of all one’s own deep sense of purpose.
She’s happy and settled and productive and content in her full life—a child, a career, an admirable marriage, deep friendships, happy parents, and a spouse she still loves. But when her husband urges her to address what the narrow labels of “husband� and “wife� force them to edit out of their lives, the very best kind of hell breaks loose.
Using the author’s personal experiences as a jumping-off point, Crush is about the danger and liberation of chasing desire, the havoc it can wreak, and most of all the clear sense of self one finds when the storm passes. Destined to become a classic novel of marriage, and tackling the big questions being asked about partnership in postpandemic relationships, Crush is a sharp, funny, seductive, and revelatory novel about holding on to everything it’s possible to love—friends, children, parents, passion, lovers, husbands, all of the world’s good books, and most of all one’s own deep sense of purpose.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published February 25, 2025
224 people are currently reading
15k people want to read
About the author
Ada Calhoun
14books405followersAda Calhoun is the author of the novel Crush. Her memoir Also a Poet was named one of the best books of 2022 by the New York Times, NPR, and The Washington Post. Prior books include New York Times–bestseller Why We Can't Sleep, Wedding Toasts I'll Never Give, and St. Marks Is Dead.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 173 reviews
March 10, 2025
you would not believe how many quotations there are in this book. it’s giving when you would finish an essay but be wildly short of word count and just perform in text citations like a madman till you got there.
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tbr review
sounds juicy
(2.5 / review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
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tbr review
sounds juicy
(2.5 / review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
November 24, 2024
I do not like to give 1 star reviews, especially pre-publication. But I have given it a lot of thought and I found pretty much nothing worthwhile about this book.
It has 3 main strikes against it. First and easiest, it's yet another annoying novel about polyamory. Before you start to protest I want to note that I am actually nonmonogamous, I am not saying it as a value judgment on the system. But most of the novels, memoirs, articles, documentaries, etc about it are bad. Many of them have the same strikes against them as this one: they're not actually about polyamory. The central event is opening up a marriage and both spouses insist they are super enlightened and can do this while they are actually miserable and do not want to.
Our female protagonist is perhaps the most annoying of the many annoying characters to attempt nonmonogamy in this genre. She reminds me of one of those people who writes letters to advice columns saying "My boyfriend is perfect and our relationship has no problems except this one thing" and the one thing is so horrible that you are positive the relationship is not actually good and neither is the boyfriend. Here, she would say that her marriage is perfect and her husband is wonderful except for how he does absolutely nothing to contribute to their household financially and is completely committed to staying that way, and how he doesn't help with the housework or parenting, and how he doesn't challenge her intellectually, and how he wants to open up their relationship. So much time she tells us how great he is and how much she loves him and it is very much some lady doth protest too much stuff.
The thing is, I would have been fine with this IF we were able to get some character growth and development. If our protagonist could go through some realizations to understand that actually she is very unhappy I would have been game. But she does not. She also thinks she is the only person who has ever truly loved, that she is not like everyone else who has affairs, etc etc. These are familiar feelings and I understand them, but we do not get to see her grow past this immaturity into something richer. It all falls very flat and she managed to annoy me even more as it went on.
The second major problem is that this is not a novel. Like yes technically I suppose it is but a novel is a story told through scenes and narration. This book has hardly any scenes, the one it does have have a handful of lines of dialogue at most. It also has very little narration of events. Instead we spend almost all of our time inside our protagonist's head while she thinks about love.
I hate writing scenes, but since I've had to work on it so much I am now laser fixed on when I see it happen elsewhere. And it is quite rare! I have never seen it in a novel before! Novels sometimes have too many scenes or the scenes don't have the right mix of dialogue to narration. But this was something else entirely.
There is no work to build up these characters. To help us understand them or relate to them. At the very end of the book, the protagonist's father is very ill and she's very upset about it but we as readers barely know this man and know little about their relationship and it's hard to get any emotional depth to it. And the central romance of the book is with a man who we know nothing about except that he likes to quote things (ughhh, I will admit the two of them are made for each other in this sense with all the quoting) and write long emails and apparently is also very handsome and good at sex. Why is she in love with him? What is so interesting about him? Why is she so convinced that this is a love for the ages, that her experience approaches the mystical, when all we know is that he sent her lots of long emails quoting Abelard. It becomes quite strange how this man is always there, always ready to do exactly what she wants, always patient when she doesn't want to do things, completely uninterested in anything or anyone else except her. Sometimes I say that a novel needed a better edit but this doesn't even feel like a novel.
And the third problem is that Calhoun absolutely will not stop quoting stuff. This is a novel, remember, you don't really need quotes or referrals or citations. Maybe you can throw in a good one as the epigraph at the beginning or maybe you can go wild and do an epigraph at the beginning of each part or chapter. But Calhoun uses them constantly. Our protagonist was thinking about X which makes her think of that quote by Petrarch and also this one interview Frances McDormand once gave. (Neither of these examples are made up, btw.) There are quotes from books, from song lyrics, from random celebrity interviews. My theory is that Calhoun, who normally writes nonfiction, had a bunch of quotes about love laying around and wanted to use them.
But this is not how novels work. Have our protagonist tell us how she feels! Do not just give us all these reference points! Quotes are not emotions! Saying it felt like that song lyric may work once or twice, but it should not happen once or twice a page. (This is also not an exaggeration.)
I was very annoyed by all these things and I fully admit that by 10% of the way into this book I had transitioned into hate reading. But I wanted to see where she was going to take this. What was the point of all this ridiculousness? What was the story she had to tell? (A story which, apparently, is at least partially autobiographical, which I guess is a choice you can make when your protagonist is the worst.) In the end, it was a very boring story. I didn't feel like I learned anything about love or saw a new kind of character. It wasn't a pleasant diversion. There is no there there.
Yeah, one star feels about right.
It has 3 main strikes against it. First and easiest, it's yet another annoying novel about polyamory. Before you start to protest I want to note that I am actually nonmonogamous, I am not saying it as a value judgment on the system. But most of the novels, memoirs, articles, documentaries, etc about it are bad. Many of them have the same strikes against them as this one: they're not actually about polyamory. The central event is opening up a marriage and both spouses insist they are super enlightened and can do this while they are actually miserable and do not want to.
Our female protagonist is perhaps the most annoying of the many annoying characters to attempt nonmonogamy in this genre. She reminds me of one of those people who writes letters to advice columns saying "My boyfriend is perfect and our relationship has no problems except this one thing" and the one thing is so horrible that you are positive the relationship is not actually good and neither is the boyfriend. Here, she would say that her marriage is perfect and her husband is wonderful except for how he does absolutely nothing to contribute to their household financially and is completely committed to staying that way, and how he doesn't help with the housework or parenting, and how he doesn't challenge her intellectually, and how he wants to open up their relationship. So much time she tells us how great he is and how much she loves him and it is very much some lady doth protest too much stuff.
The thing is, I would have been fine with this IF we were able to get some character growth and development. If our protagonist could go through some realizations to understand that actually she is very unhappy I would have been game. But she does not. She also thinks she is the only person who has ever truly loved, that she is not like everyone else who has affairs, etc etc. These are familiar feelings and I understand them, but we do not get to see her grow past this immaturity into something richer. It all falls very flat and she managed to annoy me even more as it went on.
The second major problem is that this is not a novel. Like yes technically I suppose it is but a novel is a story told through scenes and narration. This book has hardly any scenes, the one it does have have a handful of lines of dialogue at most. It also has very little narration of events. Instead we spend almost all of our time inside our protagonist's head while she thinks about love.
I hate writing scenes, but since I've had to work on it so much I am now laser fixed on when I see it happen elsewhere. And it is quite rare! I have never seen it in a novel before! Novels sometimes have too many scenes or the scenes don't have the right mix of dialogue to narration. But this was something else entirely.
There is no work to build up these characters. To help us understand them or relate to them. At the very end of the book, the protagonist's father is very ill and she's very upset about it but we as readers barely know this man and know little about their relationship and it's hard to get any emotional depth to it. And the central romance of the book is with a man who we know nothing about except that he likes to quote things (ughhh, I will admit the two of them are made for each other in this sense with all the quoting) and write long emails and apparently is also very handsome and good at sex. Why is she in love with him? What is so interesting about him? Why is she so convinced that this is a love for the ages, that her experience approaches the mystical, when all we know is that he sent her lots of long emails quoting Abelard. It becomes quite strange how this man is always there, always ready to do exactly what she wants, always patient when she doesn't want to do things, completely uninterested in anything or anyone else except her. Sometimes I say that a novel needed a better edit but this doesn't even feel like a novel.
And the third problem is that Calhoun absolutely will not stop quoting stuff. This is a novel, remember, you don't really need quotes or referrals or citations. Maybe you can throw in a good one as the epigraph at the beginning or maybe you can go wild and do an epigraph at the beginning of each part or chapter. But Calhoun uses them constantly. Our protagonist was thinking about X which makes her think of that quote by Petrarch and also this one interview Frances McDormand once gave. (Neither of these examples are made up, btw.) There are quotes from books, from song lyrics, from random celebrity interviews. My theory is that Calhoun, who normally writes nonfiction, had a bunch of quotes about love laying around and wanted to use them.
But this is not how novels work. Have our protagonist tell us how she feels! Do not just give us all these reference points! Quotes are not emotions! Saying it felt like that song lyric may work once or twice, but it should not happen once or twice a page. (This is also not an exaggeration.)
I was very annoyed by all these things and I fully admit that by 10% of the way into this book I had transitioned into hate reading. But I wanted to see where she was going to take this. What was the point of all this ridiculousness? What was the story she had to tell? (A story which, apparently, is at least partially autobiographical, which I guess is a choice you can make when your protagonist is the worst.) In the end, it was a very boring story. I didn't feel like I learned anything about love or saw a new kind of character. It wasn't a pleasant diversion. There is no there there.
Yeah, one star feels about right.
March 23, 2025
“Adults deal in moral ambiguity. Never hurting people or getting hurt is impossible if you’re living an honest life.�
This is a challenging book to review. Not because it was difficult to read. Mainly because my enjoyment of it had more to do with how I approached it than anything else. If I look at it from the standpoint of a novel (which it is), I’d expect some excellent character development and a compelling story arc. Personally, I couldn’t claim this to excel on those merits alone. Instead, I approached this as what I like to call an “ideas� book, much like I did Rachel Cusk’s Outline. Don’t get me wrong, however. I’m not comparing Cusk with Ada Calhoun. Come to think of it, Miranda July’s book All Fours comes to mind as well. July and Calhoun are both dealing with middle-aged, married women that balance thriving careers with motherhood. The marriages are pretty successful, at least as far as these women can tell when compared to how they view other marriages. Both novels examine what happens when these women explore their needs and desires. July’s book did it better, but this one was pretty damn interesting to me as well. The narrator’s friend best encapsulates the question at the heart of this novel:
“You have to ask: If this was my last year alive, how would I want to spend it? If I had thirty years? If you’re saying ‘Things are good enough � why should I blow them up?� The answer is because ‘good enough� should not be the goal,� she said. “We didn’t work this hard� � by “we� I sensed she meant women � “to be fine.�
This is a first-person narrative and the voice of the protagonist kept me well engaged. You might find this a bit pretentious, as she throws around quotes from other writers and philosophers like your local Rotary Club throws candy at parade-goers. They just keep coming. Yet, I found myself highlighting the hell out of this. Marilynn Robinson, Michel de Montaigne, Graham Greene, Rabindranath Tagore, and Ortega y Gasset were a just a few of those I flagged in my copy (Robinson and Greene being the only ones I’ve personally read). Sometimes, while being clever, she also made me smile a bit.
“I wanted to send word to my generational cohort: Don’t we make our own cages? When we rattle the bars don’t we often find that they are made of cardboard? That we’ve cut them out for ourselves with X-ACTO knives? Look! We are free! We have nothing to lose but our PTA membership!�
What happens when you find that deep connection? What do you do about a marriage that is plodding along ‘just fine�? Our narrator tries to answer those questions. What she concludes, well, you’d have to read this to find out. In the meantime, I’m super curious about Calhoun’s non-fiction work.
“So what does a true happy ending look like? I think it’s always a surprise.�
This is a challenging book to review. Not because it was difficult to read. Mainly because my enjoyment of it had more to do with how I approached it than anything else. If I look at it from the standpoint of a novel (which it is), I’d expect some excellent character development and a compelling story arc. Personally, I couldn’t claim this to excel on those merits alone. Instead, I approached this as what I like to call an “ideas� book, much like I did Rachel Cusk’s Outline. Don’t get me wrong, however. I’m not comparing Cusk with Ada Calhoun. Come to think of it, Miranda July’s book All Fours comes to mind as well. July and Calhoun are both dealing with middle-aged, married women that balance thriving careers with motherhood. The marriages are pretty successful, at least as far as these women can tell when compared to how they view other marriages. Both novels examine what happens when these women explore their needs and desires. July’s book did it better, but this one was pretty damn interesting to me as well. The narrator’s friend best encapsulates the question at the heart of this novel:
“You have to ask: If this was my last year alive, how would I want to spend it? If I had thirty years? If you’re saying ‘Things are good enough � why should I blow them up?� The answer is because ‘good enough� should not be the goal,� she said. “We didn’t work this hard� � by “we� I sensed she meant women � “to be fine.�
This is a first-person narrative and the voice of the protagonist kept me well engaged. You might find this a bit pretentious, as she throws around quotes from other writers and philosophers like your local Rotary Club throws candy at parade-goers. They just keep coming. Yet, I found myself highlighting the hell out of this. Marilynn Robinson, Michel de Montaigne, Graham Greene, Rabindranath Tagore, and Ortega y Gasset were a just a few of those I flagged in my copy (Robinson and Greene being the only ones I’ve personally read). Sometimes, while being clever, she also made me smile a bit.
“I wanted to send word to my generational cohort: Don’t we make our own cages? When we rattle the bars don’t we often find that they are made of cardboard? That we’ve cut them out for ourselves with X-ACTO knives? Look! We are free! We have nothing to lose but our PTA membership!�
What happens when you find that deep connection? What do you do about a marriage that is plodding along ‘just fine�? Our narrator tries to answer those questions. What she concludes, well, you’d have to read this to find out. In the meantime, I’m super curious about Calhoun’s non-fiction work.
“So what does a true happy ending look like? I think it’s always a surprise.�
February 11, 2025
Early in Ada Calhoun’s debut novel, “Crush,� the narrator asks, “Why were so many tales about women’s sexuality so depressing?�
Even if you can’t still taste the arsenic on Madame Bovary’s lips, you know she’s right.
Women may � for the moment � be allowed to vote, own property and wear pants, but how they pursue and experience erotic pleasure remains more closely supervised than the purification of uranium. Of course, they’re free to step outside the confines of monogamy whenever they want, so long as they keep walking toward the waves.
In several nonfiction books, including “Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give� and “Why We Can’t Sleep,� Calhoun has been a reliable source of wit and insight on the way women respond to intimate and economic pressures. Now, her first work of fiction is not so much a revolution as a turn of that screw. “Crush� is the story of a middle-aged woman � vaguely Calhoun-shaped � who struggles to balance the demands of career, marriage and motherhood with the disruptive desire for passion.
A more cavalier critic might declare this a genuine trend: “Crush� makes a chummy companion to Miranda July’s “All Fours,� which was a finalist for a National Book Award last fall. Both novels feel tantalizingly autobiographical and subordinate storytelling to a wry critique of the sexual confines of marriage. What’s more, both novelists have developed voices that borrow from the confessional techniques of performers like Tig Notaro and Hannah Gadsby. Calhoun’s book, despite its enthusiasm for literary quotations, feels distinctly verbal � like an audiobook on paper.
The narrator of “Crush� introduces herself by assuring us that she learned her lesson early when she was called “a slut� in middle school. “The social retribution for having succumbed to lust,� she says, “taught me one of the highest-stakes lessons of womanhood: Desire must be....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
Even if you can’t still taste the arsenic on Madame Bovary’s lips, you know she’s right.
Women may � for the moment � be allowed to vote, own property and wear pants, but how they pursue and experience erotic pleasure remains more closely supervised than the purification of uranium. Of course, they’re free to step outside the confines of monogamy whenever they want, so long as they keep walking toward the waves.
In several nonfiction books, including “Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give� and “Why We Can’t Sleep,� Calhoun has been a reliable source of wit and insight on the way women respond to intimate and economic pressures. Now, her first work of fiction is not so much a revolution as a turn of that screw. “Crush� is the story of a middle-aged woman � vaguely Calhoun-shaped � who struggles to balance the demands of career, marriage and motherhood with the disruptive desire for passion.
A more cavalier critic might declare this a genuine trend: “Crush� makes a chummy companion to Miranda July’s “All Fours,� which was a finalist for a National Book Award last fall. Both novels feel tantalizingly autobiographical and subordinate storytelling to a wry critique of the sexual confines of marriage. What’s more, both novelists have developed voices that borrow from the confessional techniques of performers like Tig Notaro and Hannah Gadsby. Calhoun’s book, despite its enthusiasm for literary quotations, feels distinctly verbal � like an audiobook on paper.
The narrator of “Crush� introduces herself by assuring us that she learned her lesson early when she was called “a slut� in middle school. “The social retribution for having succumbed to lust,� she says, “taught me one of the highest-stakes lessons of womanhood: Desire must be....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
February 26, 2025
Our narrator has followed the rules her whole life. She’s been a good mother, excelled in her work, and done more than her fair share of the household chores. So when her husband offers her the opportunity to cut loose a little bit, she jumps at the chance. The agreement is that she is allowed to kiss other men. What she doesn’t bank on is falling in love. Now she must balance her peaceful domestic life with her husband and her all-consuming passion for her new beau. And she realizes she may have to make a life-changing choice.
This novel definitely read like a memoir. The main character has a strong narrative voice, and we spend much of the book inside her head. There’s not a lot of interiority from other characters and not much in the way of action…but I loved it! The storytelling choices here totally worked for me and I was completely pulled in. This book felt like a trusted friend telling you her secrets after a few drinks. It won’t be for everyone, but I’m a big fan. I would definitely recommend this one to readers who loved Miranda July’s All Fours.
This novel definitely read like a memoir. The main character has a strong narrative voice, and we spend much of the book inside her head. There’s not a lot of interiority from other characters and not much in the way of action…but I loved it! The storytelling choices here totally worked for me and I was completely pulled in. This book felt like a trusted friend telling you her secrets after a few drinks. It won’t be for everyone, but I’m a big fan. I would definitely recommend this one to readers who loved Miranda July’s All Fours.
March 2, 2025
Oh how I hate this book!
She glamorizes an affair and blames it all on her husband.
Selfish, selfish, selfish.
She really starts this story in another book, Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give which is non-fiction. I read and reviewed it and I see how this has all gone now with this book.
She talked a lot about non-monogamous in that first book and now she develops it to its fullest in this book. In that review I understood how non-monogamous made sense to her. Now I see an incredibly selfish woman defending her choices.
IRL, I come down on neither side of staying married or getting divorced. That’s for each couple to decide. Affairs happen. I’m not naive. Glamorizing your affair in print? Yucky, yucky, yucky.
Also, Ada, by slapping fiction on this story of your life and changing names, you don’t fool me for a second. You wrote this as non-fiction using all sorts of quoted references but somewhere between finishing and publication it became fiction.
Last, this book is as much about the last days and death of her father as it is about her marriage. She didn’t like her relationship with her father either.
And with this, I quit this very personal genre of “here’s my marriage for you to gaze at�. The marriage books are trending hard. They are no longer for me. I don’t want to look in anymore bedrooms. I just want to go forth in peace. ✌�
She glamorizes an affair and blames it all on her husband.
Selfish, selfish, selfish.
She really starts this story in another book, Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give which is non-fiction. I read and reviewed it and I see how this has all gone now with this book.
She talked a lot about non-monogamous in that first book and now she develops it to its fullest in this book. In that review I understood how non-monogamous made sense to her. Now I see an incredibly selfish woman defending her choices.
IRL, I come down on neither side of staying married or getting divorced. That’s for each couple to decide. Affairs happen. I’m not naive. Glamorizing your affair in print? Yucky, yucky, yucky.
Also, Ada, by slapping fiction on this story of your life and changing names, you don’t fool me for a second. You wrote this as non-fiction using all sorts of quoted references but somewhere between finishing and publication it became fiction.
Last, this book is as much about the last days and death of her father as it is about her marriage. She didn’t like her relationship with her father either.
And with this, I quit this very personal genre of “here’s my marriage for you to gaze at�. The marriage books are trending hard. They are no longer for me. I don’t want to look in anymore bedrooms. I just want to go forth in peace. ✌�
December 10, 2024
If I have to read one more book that quotes other authors and songs the entire time I’m going to lose my mind!!!
November 24, 2024
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.
Thanks to @netgalley and the publisher for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review
#booksbooksbooks #booktok #bookstagram #arcreader #bookreview #bookrecommendations #crush
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.
Thanks to @netgalley and the publisher for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review
#booksbooksbooks #booktok #bookstagram #arcreader #bookreview #bookrecommendations #crush
October 9, 2024
So beautifully, humorously, thoughtfully written. I had been longing for a book I couldn’t stop reading and failing to find it. Now it’s over. The small tragedy of being a book lover.
The main character has always been a flirt and her husband doesn't like to kiss. So he pushes her to consider kissing other men and opening up their marriage--but only so far. She winds up in a white-hot, bone-deep affair of the heart and mind--but can she consummate it? Can she not consummate it? Can the marriage survive? Should it, indeed, survive? What does the husband really want? And does it matter?
The main character has always been a flirt and her husband doesn't like to kiss. So he pushes her to consider kissing other men and opening up their marriage--but only so far. She winds up in a white-hot, bone-deep affair of the heart and mind--but can she consummate it? Can she not consummate it? Can the marriage survive? Should it, indeed, survive? What does the husband really want? And does it matter?
November 15, 2024
While I enjoyed this book and found it to be well-written, it was quite pretentious and I'm not sure who this book is for, exactly. Maybe someone who studies the classics but wants a breezy-ish romantic read? Calhoun references Petrarch, hooks, Hildegard of Bingen, St. Teresa of Avila, Auden, Whitman, Marilynne Robinson, Jules Renard, and Stendahl but also Grey's Anatomy, Weird Science, Parks and Recreation, and Clueless. The book is overflowing with allusions that tend to overwhelm the narrative.
Calhoun's portrait of a woman who finds and falls in love with her intellectual equal, with whom she's addicted to talking and sharing every thought, was effective and well done. I just felt that she skipped over some important parts of the plot in service of showing off her considerable intellect (She never mentions David's relationship status--is he single? Divorced? I guess we just assume he's available. And after all that fretting over how Nate, her son, would take her divorce, there is no mention of how he reacts).
Calhoun's portrait of a woman who finds and falls in love with her intellectual equal, with whom she's addicted to talking and sharing every thought, was effective and well done. I just felt that she skipped over some important parts of the plot in service of showing off her considerable intellect (She never mentions David's relationship status--is he single? Divorced? I guess we just assume he's available. And after all that fretting over how Nate, her son, would take her divorce, there is no mention of how he reacts).
October 27, 2024
The narrator of this is way too annoying, even if the premise of the book is interesting. I could barely make myself finish it.
December 14, 2024
This book was interesting. I wasn’t exactly sure where it was going to go, but we got there. It’s a nice story of learning to stick up for yourself and do what makes you happy in life. Pretty good.
March 11, 2025
How ironic to come across these lines roughly 50 pages into this buzzy new novel:
"It can be hard to separate how we feel about people from how we feel about what they make. That's why Veronica said she'd been burned one too many times by blurbs heralding books as unputdownable when she'd found them to be, in fact, quite putdownable."
The irony here being that I'd checked this book out from the library on the strength of the names associated with blurbs on its back cover—names that included authors whose work I love (Emma Straub, Claire Dederer, Isaac Fitzgerald) and, therefore, thought I could trust.
Wow was I wrong, as this is my first DNF of 2025. Quite putdownable, indeed!
"It can be hard to separate how we feel about people from how we feel about what they make. That's why Veronica said she'd been burned one too many times by blurbs heralding books as unputdownable when she'd found them to be, in fact, quite putdownable."
The irony here being that I'd checked this book out from the library on the strength of the names associated with blurbs on its back cover—names that included authors whose work I love (Emma Straub, Claire Dederer, Isaac Fitzgerald) and, therefore, thought I could trust.
Wow was I wrong, as this is my first DNF of 2025. Quite putdownable, indeed!
December 16, 2024
Where to start? I think I was expecting something different going into this book and that ultimately hindered my enjoyment a little bit.
Seen as Crush is marketed as a novel, I wasn't quite prepared for the format and writing style very much mirroring that of a memoir. While Calhoun's writing is fun to follow along, I struggled to really connect with any of the characters. The story was laced with so many quotes and references that it felt more like an amalgamation of what others thought of love, loss and grief rather than the author's original thoughts, which is odd considering this book is very much (loosely) inspired by her own life.
Still, I could see this book being a sort of catharsis for the author. I, personally, enjoyed the parts about her difficult relationship with her father the most. However, I don't think it dealt with non-monogamy in as deep a way as it could have.
Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an advance copy of the book in exchange for an honest review!
Seen as Crush is marketed as a novel, I wasn't quite prepared for the format and writing style very much mirroring that of a memoir. While Calhoun's writing is fun to follow along, I struggled to really connect with any of the characters. The story was laced with so many quotes and references that it felt more like an amalgamation of what others thought of love, loss and grief rather than the author's original thoughts, which is odd considering this book is very much (loosely) inspired by her own life.
Still, I could see this book being a sort of catharsis for the author. I, personally, enjoyed the parts about her difficult relationship with her father the most. However, I don't think it dealt with non-monogamy in as deep a way as it could have.
Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an advance copy of the book in exchange for an honest review!
November 25, 2024
Thanks to Netgalley and Viking for the ebook. Our lead character leads an admirable life, married, great son, lots of work. She’s even close to her parents, including a sometimes troublesome father. Then one day her husband encourages her to seek a relationship out of their marriage. She winds up kissing a few people she meets and it seems to spice up her marriage. Then she starts a long distance emotional affair and nothing seems like it could ever go back to the way it was. Emotional and funny throughout. This is a lovely book.
Want to read
February 5, 2025DNFing this at 10%.
March 29, 2025
I did not enjoy this book at all. I felt there was no real accountability from the wife and the damage that was caused by the affair and open marriage.
January 2, 2025
This book won't be for everyone and at first I wasn't sure it was for me. I am challenging myself to read more women's fiction this year and I was drawn to this premise because I am going through a similar situation that I am struggling with in my personal life and I saw a lot of my issues in those of the unnamed narrator's.
What I didn't like: I'm an English/Creative Writing major so I thought I would be charmed by the constant quotations and philosophizing as the narrator navigates a newly open marriage. But there were so many quotations, each short chapter felt just littered with them; I found my eyes glazing over with so many. This author is clearly a well-read polymath and was showing that off to a pretentious degree.
It is also clearly autofiction, which is not my favorite style, and at first the story felt choppy, told in short personal essays instead of a cohesive, traditional narrative arc; a lot more telling referenced with quotations instead of showing and immersing us in the day to day of her life. It felt like reading her personal diary.
The narrator and many of the characters in this book are unlikable, but this is a modern love story and a story about feminism and a middle-aged woman coming of age in a new chapter in her life in a way that I found very relatable.
The story opens with the narrator talking about her history with crushes. Early on she learned she loved kissing men. Then she learned that kissing multiple men too quickly would get her labeled a slut, which made her uncomfortable. So she learned to navigate her love of kissing by having one monogamous relationship and a stable of crushes. She'd never act on these feelings but became an expert in the fun cat and mouse game of flirtation, which satisfied her need for awhile.
Then she marries Paul and has a kid with him. An artist whom she resentfully supports with her earnings as a ghostwriter, she is attracted to him not because he feels emasculated by her crushes but because he finds her flirting thrilling and erotic. The sex between them is good and the narrator values a stable family above all else, so she foregoes her needs, such as kissing.
Paul proposes an open marriage, in which the narrator can kiss anyone she likes, and in return Paul can experiment with online dating. But the boundaries and expectations keep shifting, leading to miscommunication and jealousy.
Wondering who she can kiss next, the narrator reconnects with an old college crush, who is now a very sexy but nerdy college professor, and the two engage in a long-distance correspondence over a shared love of books and letters. Soon the narrator finds herself in a dilemma: She has fallen in love with another man, and it is a deep, lifetime, spirtual sort of soulmate connection. And suddenly everything she had with Paul that was good before becomes suffocating and stale and she has to choose the kind of life she wants for herself, while struggling with her complicated relationship with her dying writer father. It soon becomes apparent that she's sought emotional validation from everyone in her life except herself.
Advocates of polyamory and people who hate cheating will each dislike this novel, because what this couple practices is not polyamory at all or even ethical nonmonogamy. They aren't honest with each other about their expectations and boundaries, and aren't fair to themselves or their lovers. A couple like this is the worst fear of a poly purist who is dating for genuine connection. My poly friends aren't like this couple. And the nonstop quotations just felt like the narrator trying to justify an extramarital affair and became tedious. I found myself frequently rolling my eyes at how incredibly sappy they got - sometimes I wanted to shake them to take responsibility for their affair.
I also wanted to shake Paul sometimes - how could he know his wife so little that he thought she could keep it at just kissing? I often wondered what he was getting out of the marriage other than financial dependence.
But it happens, married people fall in love with other people, and I liked their love story. Telling you who she picks would be a complete spoiler.
However, the way the overall narrative arc coalesced was beautiful and touching to me, and I found this novel had a lot of meaningful things to say about love, relationships, what women want and if they really can have it all, and nontraditional families.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
What I didn't like: I'm an English/Creative Writing major so I thought I would be charmed by the constant quotations and philosophizing as the narrator navigates a newly open marriage. But there were so many quotations, each short chapter felt just littered with them; I found my eyes glazing over with so many. This author is clearly a well-read polymath and was showing that off to a pretentious degree.
It is also clearly autofiction, which is not my favorite style, and at first the story felt choppy, told in short personal essays instead of a cohesive, traditional narrative arc; a lot more telling referenced with quotations instead of showing and immersing us in the day to day of her life. It felt like reading her personal diary.
The narrator and many of the characters in this book are unlikable, but this is a modern love story and a story about feminism and a middle-aged woman coming of age in a new chapter in her life in a way that I found very relatable.
The story opens with the narrator talking about her history with crushes. Early on she learned she loved kissing men. Then she learned that kissing multiple men too quickly would get her labeled a slut, which made her uncomfortable. So she learned to navigate her love of kissing by having one monogamous relationship and a stable of crushes. She'd never act on these feelings but became an expert in the fun cat and mouse game of flirtation, which satisfied her need for awhile.
Then she marries Paul and has a kid with him. An artist whom she resentfully supports with her earnings as a ghostwriter, she is attracted to him not because he feels emasculated by her crushes but because he finds her flirting thrilling and erotic. The sex between them is good and the narrator values a stable family above all else, so she foregoes her needs, such as kissing.
Paul proposes an open marriage, in which the narrator can kiss anyone she likes, and in return Paul can experiment with online dating. But the boundaries and expectations keep shifting, leading to miscommunication and jealousy.
Wondering who she can kiss next, the narrator reconnects with an old college crush, who is now a very sexy but nerdy college professor, and the two engage in a long-distance correspondence over a shared love of books and letters. Soon the narrator finds herself in a dilemma: She has fallen in love with another man, and it is a deep, lifetime, spirtual sort of soulmate connection. And suddenly everything she had with Paul that was good before becomes suffocating and stale and she has to choose the kind of life she wants for herself, while struggling with her complicated relationship with her dying writer father. It soon becomes apparent that she's sought emotional validation from everyone in her life except herself.
Advocates of polyamory and people who hate cheating will each dislike this novel, because what this couple practices is not polyamory at all or even ethical nonmonogamy. They aren't honest with each other about their expectations and boundaries, and aren't fair to themselves or their lovers. A couple like this is the worst fear of a poly purist who is dating for genuine connection. My poly friends aren't like this couple. And the nonstop quotations just felt like the narrator trying to justify an extramarital affair and became tedious. I found myself frequently rolling my eyes at how incredibly sappy they got - sometimes I wanted to shake them to take responsibility for their affair.
I also wanted to shake Paul sometimes - how could he know his wife so little that he thought she could keep it at just kissing? I often wondered what he was getting out of the marriage other than financial dependence.
But it happens, married people fall in love with other people, and I liked their love story. Telling you who she picks would be a complete spoiler.
However, the way the overall narrative arc coalesced was beautiful and touching to me, and I found this novel had a lot of meaningful things to say about love, relationships, what women want and if they really can have it all, and nontraditional families.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
March 8, 2025
An academic take on love, consisting of hundreds of literary and historical references. I felt like I was on a treasure hunt for the truth, accompanied by the best selections of Emerson, the mystics, religion. I hope we all find an obsession like this one, and work to understand it better�-while accepting the answer is the pleasure of no answer.
“All actual life is encounter. The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable� (Martin Buber).
“All actual life is encounter. The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable� (Martin Buber).
Read
December 14, 2024The Friend by Sigrid Nunez x All Fours by Miranda July
Loving all the new additions to the “woman who seemingly has it all is pushed over the edge!� canon.
Loving all the new additions to the “woman who seemingly has it all is pushed over the edge!� canon.
February 26, 2025
In Crush, Calhoun explores the idea of polyamory through unraveling a heterosexual monogamous marriage. The unnamed wife narrates the novel, throughout which she learns to pay attention to what she cares about rather than going along with societal expectations for morally good wives and mothers. Paul, the husband, convinces her to shift the boundaries of their union because it seems “like a strategy for a lasting marriage and for a richer life than past generations of women were able to have.� The couple searches for “a new and better kind of fidelity—a fidelity to each other and to [themselves.]� In this strategic change of commitment, the wife finds herself in love with David.
The wife and David are Heloise and Abelard 2.0. They start as close friends on a holiday, so to speak, without transgressing into real-life territory. Their dance around the boundary by means of their epistolary romance doesn’t last because the wife and Paul continually redraw the liminal lines to adjust to their ever-transforming preferences and feelings. Throughout the book, the wife asks whether “expansion without contraction sustainable.� Her and Paul’s therapist, who specializes in polyamorous relationships, responds, not how you’re doing it: “In an open marriage, a couple explores romantic or sexual relationships with other people as a way to enhance their own lives and their connection with each other.� They have to negotiate boundaries and jealousy, and it’s not for everyone. But it can work when there is commitment and communication.� Ultimately, it doesn’t work for them.
In general, I like the idea of characters figuring out what’s meaningful, questioning what’s good, and learning to vocalize their needs. However, I didn’t enjoy the book’s over-sexualization of female and male relationships. I want to learn more about the theory behind consensual polyamory in future pop-level reading. Crush might not add to my small sample of stories about non-monogamous marriage because the wife ends up leaving Paul (a tawdry man to begin with) for David, and it sounds like this new amorous relationship is monogamous.
The wife and David are Heloise and Abelard 2.0. They start as close friends on a holiday, so to speak, without transgressing into real-life territory. Their dance around the boundary by means of their epistolary romance doesn’t last because the wife and Paul continually redraw the liminal lines to adjust to their ever-transforming preferences and feelings. Throughout the book, the wife asks whether “expansion without contraction sustainable.� Her and Paul’s therapist, who specializes in polyamorous relationships, responds, not how you’re doing it: “In an open marriage, a couple explores romantic or sexual relationships with other people as a way to enhance their own lives and their connection with each other.� They have to negotiate boundaries and jealousy, and it’s not for everyone. But it can work when there is commitment and communication.� Ultimately, it doesn’t work for them.
In general, I like the idea of characters figuring out what’s meaningful, questioning what’s good, and learning to vocalize their needs. However, I didn’t enjoy the book’s over-sexualization of female and male relationships. I want to learn more about the theory behind consensual polyamory in future pop-level reading. Crush might not add to my small sample of stories about non-monogamous marriage because the wife ends up leaving Paul (a tawdry man to begin with) for David, and it sounds like this new amorous relationship is monogamous.
March 19, 2025
Thanks to Viking Penguin and Netgalley for this advanced copy!
I almost don't know where to start with this book. On the one hand, the main character, the author I guess, navigates a change to her married life in the best way possible while detailing how all of this affects her and her husband. On the other hand, this felt like a bizarre self-indulgent tale of not a crush, but actually falling in love and moving phases in life. Maybe that's the point? This book never really seems to be about a crush or crushes or anything of the sort, but instead, it's a detailing of how her marriage wasn't nearly as fulfilling as she thought it was, her husband took too much for granted and then they found a way forward. I'm really only thankful I didn't have to hear the husband's point of view outside of the author's lens.
I struggled at times with the narrator and how in her head this all was, though I never actually struggled with her decisions. Being so in her head felt frustrating and kinda icky maybe? I don't know it was hard to see through it to where this was inevitably going. I don't know if I needed more struggle.
I think I wanted a different ending somehow? I don't know.
I almost don't know where to start with this book. On the one hand, the main character, the author I guess, navigates a change to her married life in the best way possible while detailing how all of this affects her and her husband. On the other hand, this felt like a bizarre self-indulgent tale of not a crush, but actually falling in love and moving phases in life. Maybe that's the point? This book never really seems to be about a crush or crushes or anything of the sort, but instead, it's a detailing of how her marriage wasn't nearly as fulfilling as she thought it was, her husband took too much for granted and then they found a way forward. I'm really only thankful I didn't have to hear the husband's point of view outside of the author's lens.
I struggled at times with the narrator and how in her head this all was, though I never actually struggled with her decisions. Being so in her head felt frustrating and kinda icky maybe? I don't know it was hard to see through it to where this was inevitably going. I don't know if I needed more struggle.
I think I wanted a different ending somehow? I don't know.
Shelved as 'dnf'
March 29, 2025🥱
March 15, 2025
Thank you Viking/Penguin Random House for sending me a copy!
March 22, 2025
This is a novel, not a memoir.
This is a novel, not a memoir.
This is what I found myself thinking throughout reading this book.
Infidelity vs. Polyamory
I disliked all of the quotations, and wow were there a lot.
I didn't care for the characters and their lack of growth was disappointing.
The lack of scenes throughout the story was odd and I read through just to finish it.
Would not recommend.
This is a novel, not a memoir.
This is what I found myself thinking throughout reading this book.
Infidelity vs. Polyamory
I disliked all of the quotations, and wow were there a lot.
I didn't care for the characters and their lack of growth was disappointing.
The lack of scenes throughout the story was odd and I read through just to finish it.
Would not recommend.
January 28, 2025
This one wasn't for me. I had a hard time getting into the story, the narrator wasn't my favorite, and I think overall open relationship discussion is just not my jam. I was initially drawn to the cover and title of the book but I had hard time with it.
Thanks Netgalley & PENGUIN GROUP Viking Penguin | Viking for the advanced reader copy.
Thanks Netgalley & PENGUIN GROUP Viking Penguin | Viking for the advanced reader copy.
March 2, 2025
I kept forgetting this was a novel, not a memoir.
January 16, 2025
Reading this so closely after reading All Fours by Miranda July AND after seeing Babygirl....well, I've had my fill of middle-aged women in a sexual crisis. I say this as a *shudder* middle-aged woman.
A seemingly happily married couple opens up their marriage, questioning the labels of 'husband' and 'wife', and calls it polyamory. (hint: it's not).
The 'wife' in the story talks about how her husband is rather aimless, career-wise. He's never had a steady job during their entire marriage, instead working on his "art", bartending, and keeping up with the house duties. She, on the other hand, is a successful writer/ghostwriter and is frequently on book tours or spending time away from their home by staying in New York City. If he's so great....then what's the point of this entire thing?
Crush by Ada Calhoun is written less like a novel and more like a memoir. The writing is full of quotes and references to other authors. I did find this distracting; I wanted more of the meat of the story. I feel like referencing songs, quotes from novels or movie stars, etc., is a cop-out on talking about emotions or actual feelings.
I don't know. I think I'm just....over these types of stories. I'm all about women and their sexual freedoms, but I have to stop reading books or seeing movies about it, because it's all a giant *eye-roll* from me.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.
A seemingly happily married couple opens up their marriage, questioning the labels of 'husband' and 'wife', and calls it polyamory. (hint: it's not).
The 'wife' in the story talks about how her husband is rather aimless, career-wise. He's never had a steady job during their entire marriage, instead working on his "art", bartending, and keeping up with the house duties. She, on the other hand, is a successful writer/ghostwriter and is frequently on book tours or spending time away from their home by staying in New York City. If he's so great....then what's the point of this entire thing?
Crush by Ada Calhoun is written less like a novel and more like a memoir. The writing is full of quotes and references to other authors. I did find this distracting; I wanted more of the meat of the story. I feel like referencing songs, quotes from novels or movie stars, etc., is a cop-out on talking about emotions or actual feelings.
I don't know. I think I'm just....over these types of stories. I'm all about women and their sexual freedoms, but I have to stop reading books or seeing movies about it, because it's all a giant *eye-roll* from me.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.
November 25, 2024
"Crush" was, for me, many of the things "All Fours" wanted to be but wasn't. Here we meet a mom in her late 40s with a demanding career as a writer. She has a not-so-successful husband and a demeaning father whose health is in decline. She has a wide circle of close friends and a good but not blissfully happy marriage, too. She wrestles with a variety of possibilities for the next chapter of her life as their only child gets ready to graduate from high school. The reader gets to follow along as she develops a major crush and explores what it might be like to have an open marriage or even to get divorced. The novel is packed with bits of research and literary references about love, flirtation and intimacy. It forces you to think about what you would � or would not � sacrifice for a crush or for the security of a long marriage.
Note: I received a free ARC of this debut novel in exchange for an honest review.
Note: I received a free ARC of this debut novel in exchange for an honest review.
March 12, 2025
I read Wedding Toasts I'll Never Give about 5 years ago and DEVOURED it, to this day it's one of my favorite essay collections ever and a non-fic I recommend any chance I get. So I was thrilled when I saw that she had this new release (and fiction, too!) I immediately picked this up on audiobook.
I have to agree with some of the other low-rating reviews in that:
This felt very much like a thinly veiled memoir, not fiction at all (which doesn't matter much to me, personally, I still would've read it if it was marketed as NF but it's strange that we're calling this a novel). I don't know what the author's personal experience is with non-monogamy, but to whatever extent, this should've been either a more creative/multi-layered novel or a brilliant, thought-provoking personal essay. It seems to be a hybrid of both... except without the creativity or brilliance, unfortunately.
The excessive quotations and references really overwhelmed the story. Definitely felt like the giant culmination of a notes-app-worth of quotes she liked or references she wanted to work into a future book. Would've loved this to be edited down a lot.
The female protagonist and her husband are pretty frustrating to me, one-dimensional with an obvious/predictable "storyline". If fiction, would've been interesting to have a dual-perspective here, or if at least a little more color was given to the husband other than he's basically just a slouchy guy who gets off on her flirting with other people for his own selfish reasons. Feels like we were somewhat reducing polyamory to it's simplest form here.
I had to roll my eyes at the very beginning of the book as she's setting the scene by claiming that (present day... being married with a teenage college-bound son) friends/colleagues/acquaintances/strangers were all basically clamoring to come on to her, unprompted, without any indication that the interest was mutual... based solely on her flirtatious energy and magnetic confidence. Like at one point her female friend just gets so horny listening to her talk about her interest in a man other than her husband that she starts making out with her? I don't know. Seems very unrealistic and silly...
Things I did like though... I enjoyed her reflections on the complexities of grief; what it means to grieve a relationship, a family member, a person you loved. What do we take from relationships when they end. What it means to be in love and how to choose who you give that love to. Jealousy and compersion. She definitely had some annotation-worthy bites here, specifically in the last 10% or so.
So, sadly, for me--this one didn't live up to her previous work. I'd still pick up future (non-fic!) books she writes though--and still going to shout from the rooftops about Wedding Toasts...!
I have to agree with some of the other low-rating reviews in that:
This felt very much like a thinly veiled memoir, not fiction at all (which doesn't matter much to me, personally, I still would've read it if it was marketed as NF but it's strange that we're calling this a novel). I don't know what the author's personal experience is with non-monogamy, but to whatever extent, this should've been either a more creative/multi-layered novel or a brilliant, thought-provoking personal essay. It seems to be a hybrid of both... except without the creativity or brilliance, unfortunately.
The excessive quotations and references really overwhelmed the story. Definitely felt like the giant culmination of a notes-app-worth of quotes she liked or references she wanted to work into a future book. Would've loved this to be edited down a lot.
The female protagonist and her husband are pretty frustrating to me, one-dimensional with an obvious/predictable "storyline". If fiction, would've been interesting to have a dual-perspective here, or if at least a little more color was given to the husband other than he's basically just a slouchy guy who gets off on her flirting with other people for his own selfish reasons. Feels like we were somewhat reducing polyamory to it's simplest form here.
I had to roll my eyes at the very beginning of the book as she's setting the scene by claiming that (present day... being married with a teenage college-bound son) friends/colleagues/acquaintances/strangers were all basically clamoring to come on to her, unprompted, without any indication that the interest was mutual... based solely on her flirtatious energy and magnetic confidence. Like at one point her female friend just gets so horny listening to her talk about her interest in a man other than her husband that she starts making out with her? I don't know. Seems very unrealistic and silly...
Things I did like though... I enjoyed her reflections on the complexities of grief; what it means to grieve a relationship, a family member, a person you loved. What do we take from relationships when they end. What it means to be in love and how to choose who you give that love to. Jealousy and compersion. She definitely had some annotation-worthy bites here, specifically in the last 10% or so.
So, sadly, for me--this one didn't live up to her previous work. I'd still pick up future (non-fic!) books she writes though--and still going to shout from the rooftops about Wedding Toasts...!
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