Open
One Woman's Journey Through Love and Polyamory
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
An award-winning journalist chronicles her first open relationship with “breathtaking honesty” (Los Angeles Times) in this “sexy, messy, necessary look at polyamory” (The Advocate).
FINALIST FOR THE LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: PopSugar, Them
When Rachel Krantz met and fell for Adam, he told her that he was looking for a committed partnership—just one that did not include monogamy. Intrigued and more than a little nervous, Krantz decided to see whether their love could coexist with the freedom to date other people. Could they strike an exquisite balance between intimacy and independence, and find a way to feel passion for each other once the honeymoon phase ended?
Krantz documents her dive into polyamory, from Brooklyn sex parties to swinging and beyond, in her extraordinary debut memoir. As she attempts to write a new plot for her love story with Adam, she runs up against miscommunications, gaslighting, and ancient power dynamics, and seeks solid ground in a relationship where the rules are ever-shifting. An award-winning journalist, she interviewed scientists, psychologists, and people living and loving outside the mainstream as she searched to understand what polyamory would do to her heart, her mind, and her life.
With an unflinching eye and page-turning storytelling, Open is groundbreaking in both its documentarian approach to polyamory and its explicit subject matter. From debilitating anxiety spirals to heart-opening connections with the men and women she dates, Rachel puts her whole self on the line as she attempts to redefine what a relationship is—or could be.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this evocative debut, Krantz, founding editor of Bustle, chronicles how an open relationship changed her life. Fresh from a breakup in 2015, she met Adam, an academic studying "the psychology of romantic and sexual desire—specifically, the importance of triangulation." After their second date, he confessed he was seeking a life partner, but ultimately wanted an arrangement where neither partner was restricted. Eager to explore her sexuality, Krantz accepted and was promptly whisked into what she recounts was at first an idyllic relationship, a phase commonly referred to by psychologists as "lovebombing." In titillating detail, Krantz chronicles the sex parties, "Dom/sub relationships," and MFM (Male-Female-Male) threesomes her and Adam participated in. "Nothing was off limits: dates, arguments, role playing, trips to swingers' resorts," she writes. Eventually, though, manipulative tendencies from both partners came to the fore. Krantz sweeps readers into a narrative that seduces and educates in equal measure, but it can be difficult to parse her vulnerability from artifice, especially upon learning that Krantz "obsessively documented" her relationships and made audio recordings of "hours and hours, days and days" of sexual encounters after being approached to write this book. Nonetheless, this offers an alluring and insightful look at a life lived outside of conventional structures.
