I am delighted to be on the tour for this fascinating read.
What's this about? 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 exclusivity.
Excited but a little trepidatious, Rachel set out to see whether love and a serious relationship can coexist beyond the familiar borders of monogamy. This is her open and honest true story.
Now, in her debut memoir, she chronicles her dive into non-monogamy. With fly-on-the-wall detail and extraordinary perceptiveness, OPEN takes us inside Brooklyn parties and into the wider swinger and polyamory community. Armed with her journalistic instincts, detailed journal entries and interviews with experts and therapists, Krantz also breaks new ground in confronting the unique ways tacit abuse and gaslighting can manifest when things get so complex.
Unflinching and brazen, OPEN asks what liberation really looks like, and whether the pleasure really is worth the pain.
Bobs and Books honest review:
One of the best things about being a book blogger is being enabled to read about worlds that I know absolutely nothing about. This was definitely one of those reads. I've read magazine and newspaper articles on this subject matter and have had discussions with friends about this but never absorbed or considered a detailed and first hand account of what a non-monogamous world is really like. This was a learning experience and insightful read.
What I love about this the most is Krantz's honesty. She recognises her own mistakes but its so much more than that. She blends the form up with not only an account of what happened but through journal entries, emails, conversations etc. This gives the reader a much rounder and fuller view.
Top tip- read the footnotes! They are also thoroughly entertaining and definitely add value to this narrative.
Without wanting to discuss spoilers, this really is a brave account of what happened to her. With elements of #metoo about it, there are moments where I wanted to scream at her to run away from this relationship and fast.
She meets some interesting people along the way and I liked how my (and her) perceptions changed throughout the book.
An unusual memoir that I struggled to put down, but at times was a difficult read due to the lived experiences. Creatively constructed, surprising and really doesn't hold back.
About the author:
Rachel Krantz is a journalist and one of the founding editors of Bustle, where she served as senior features editor for three years. Her work has been featured on NPR, The Guardian, Vox, Vice, and many other outlets. She’s the recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the Investigative Reporters and Editors Radio Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award, and the Peabody Award for her work as an investigative reporter with YR Media.
Comments