FROM SEXLESS MARRIAGE TO SEX GODDESS, A MEMOIR

An explicit recounting of a woman’s journey to sexual reawakening.

Psychologist Kriegel moves “out of the therapist’s chair and into the hot seat” in this memoir about her personal mission to rediscover her sexuality after a near-sexless 25-year marriage. The book opens on 49-year-old Kriegel in the middle of a group sex session. She then backtracks to her upbringing in a conservative New Jersey suburb, where she felt out of place as a Jewish tomboy. At 22, she married her college boyfriend, Robert. The pain Kriegel felt during sex diminished the married couple’s physical connection, but their friendship sustained them. The couple’s son, Leo, was born on their 18th anniversary. Six years later, Robert revealed he was in love with a man. Kriegel and Robert stayed married and continued cohabiting, though Kriegel felt “lost and alone.” She began studying her menstrual cycle, taking hula hoop classes, and flirting with a young male server. She soon ventured into online dating and became increasingly bold in her sexuality, experimenting with BDSM, swinging, and sex with a woman, among other acts. She also endured the downsides of dating, like dishonest married men, being ghosted, and contracting an STI. Sex was no longer enough; she wanted love, too. She eventually moved into her own apartment and found a boyfriend, embracing love and sex in a more open-minded way. In this racy tell-all book, Kriegel lays bare her sex life, bluntly cataloging a wide array of erotic experiences with language like, “When I finally came, she looked up at me with a huge smile as she licked the cum off her lips and announced proudly, ‘mission accomplished.’” Reproducing text messages verbatim enhances the book’s voyeuristic vibe. Those unacquainted with modern dating or craving sexual novelty will experience vicarious thrills through Kriegel’s sexcapades; however, the unadorned prose offers little pleasure for memoir connoisseurs. Sensory details beyond the sex scenes are sorely lacking, leaving readers with generic descriptions like, “He was friendly, attractive and casually dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.”

A titillating memoir that prioritizes candor over craft.