Review by Booklist Review
Rinaldi's traumatic childhood made her leery of motherhood. When she changed her mind about having children, her otherwise loving husband was so set against it, he had a vasectomy. As she entered her forties, Rinaldi, then an executive editor for a San Francisco lifestyle magazine, decided that, as compensation, she would pursue more sexually fulfilling adventures. After convincing her husband to agree to an open marriage, she went online to schedule strictly controlled, impersonal assignations. Her descriptions of these encounters are methodically clinical, dreary, and creepy. But then Rinaldi's journalistic instincts kick in, and she transforms her troubling sex odyssey into a stunning report on Internet-organized, guru-led experimental communities seeking healing through monitored sex acts, including orgasmic meditation. Rinaldi even moves into a nonmonogamous commune based on female orgasm. Ultimately, this intensely competitive, self-described bookie's daughter from Scranton and melancholy ballbuster meets all kinds of attractive and accomplished people in this hidden world and finally overcomes her chronic and debilitating psychic pain. Readers will be provoked and fascinated by Rinaldi's forthright memoir of daredevil sexual exploration and self-liberation.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this frank, salacious work delineating her desperate attempt at emotional and sexual liberation, the Scranton, Penn., author and frustrated wife ultimately recognizes that she lost a great deal and gained little. As an editor at San Francisco's lifestyle magazine 7 x 7, married for 10 years to Scott, a successful, though emotionally opaque entrepreneur ("His erection was solid and dependable, just like him"), dealing with her childhood of parental alcoholism and brutality, and facing childlessness by her mid-40s, Rinaldi resolved to contemplate an open marriage when her husband took the decisive step to get a vasectomy rather than have children. Rather surprisingly, he agrees to the arrangement, and while the couple spends the weekdays together at their shared home near the Castro, Rinaldi gets a studio and begins a dizzying round of Nerve.com dates that fulfill her need for sexual exploration, though she sets firm perimeters in terms of emotional attachment. Luckily, in San Francisco, she notes wryly that "polyamory wasn't all that rare," and she gravitates toward the "urban commune" called OneTaste, which conducts hands-on orgasm meditation (OM) seminars for men and women, and where Rinaldi ultimately finds her most satisfying lovers-also women. To her credit, Rinaldi does not hide the dark side to this odyssey-her own jealousy at Scott's lover, her absolute self-absorption and mendacity-but her ability to grasp its soul-driving necessity without insisting on winning over her readers renders this a notable work of self-knowledge. (Mar) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Magazine editor and writer Rinaldi and her husband, Scott, had reached a marital impasse-she wanted kids, desperately; he did not, definitely. Shortly after Scott got a vasectomy, Rinaldi came up with a plan B (or plan S-E-X) for herself. Instead of divorce, more counseling, or throwing herself into charity work, she chose to pursue erotic experiences. As she put it, she didn't want to look back on her life with "no kids and only four lovers." She devised an open-marriage plan, the Wild Oats Project, whereby she spent weekdays and nights at a bachelorette pad, visiting dating websites, having assignations, joining sex workshops and groups, then heading home to Scott on weekends. As one might expect about her best laid plans, things go awry. But the author gets to put a few notches on her bedpost and perhaps find fulfillment and even more self-knowledge at the end of her -project. VERDICT While at times the author is exasperating and one might marvel at her husband's patience, her daring project and avid search for passion is a true page-turner. For anyone who's wondered "what if" or "should I?" [See Rinaldi Q&A, p. 116.]-Liz French, Library Journal © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A 40-something journalist's account of her yearlong open-marriage experiment and its consequences.Rinaldi loved her husband, Scott. Though not especially demonstrative, he was stable, kind and had always been there for her. But he had also made it clear that he had no wish to have children and got a vasectomy. With no hope of creating a family and hungry to experience the passion that was missing from her marriage, the author embarked on what she and Scott would jokingly dub the "Wild Oats Project": an open marriage that would permit both to see others outside of their immediate social circle. From the start, "good girl" Rinaldi broke rules and slept with someone both she and Scott knew. After that, she began consulting with seduction experts schooled in the ways of "pleasure, flirtation, sensuality and abundance," advertising for short-term partners on hookup websites and trying out one-night stands with hot young strangers half her age. Her journey eventually led her to OneTouch, an "urban commune" dedicated to the open exploration of desire. There, she met, and slept with, other seekers of sexual wisdom, including one woman with whom she had a lesbian fling and another with whom she had a "girl on girl on boy" threesome. Toward the end of her "project," Rinaldi unexpectedly heard from one of her short-term partners, a man with whom she had fallen in love and who had fallen in love with her. Now fully able to see the limitations in her marriage, she chose to take a chance with her former lover and accept the consequences, both positive and negative. Never apologizing for her actions, the author writes that her project was something that her "soul drove [her] to do," a difficult challenge she could refuse only with the risk of losing the personal enlightenment she was seeking all along. A sensitive, intimate and bold story. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
