Review: The Intimacy Experiment by Rosie Danan
Photo by Womanizer WOW Tech on Unsplash
Synopsis:
N
aomi Grant has built her life around going against the grain. After the sex-positive start-up she cofounded becomes an international sensation, she wants to extend her educational platform to live lecturing. Unfortunately, despite her long list of qualifications, higher ed won’t hire her. Ethan Cohen has recently received two honors: LA Mag nominated him as one of the city’s hottest bachelors and he became rabbi of his own synagogue. Low on both funds and congregants, Ethan’s new shul hired him with the hopes that his nontraditional background would attract more millennials to the faith. They give him six months to turn things around or else they’ll close the doors of his synagogue for good. Naomi and Ethan join forces to host a buzzy seminar series on modern intimacy, the perfect solution to each of their problems—until they discover a new one…their growing attraction to each other. They’ve built the syllabus for love’s latest experiment, but neither of them expected they’d be the ones putting it to the test.
It felt like something was missing.
“The world is cruel and unrelenting, full of pain and injustice…and I am a stick of dynamite.”
I read Rosie Danan’s first book, The Roommate, and I really enjoyed it. Of course, it was a little too white for a book set in Los Angeles than I would have liked, but I still bought my own copy and recommended it to friends, and pre-ordered the next book in the series.
What I liked about The Roommate, was that it was so sex-positive and the way it reframes our preconceived notions about sex workers. And it was steamy and fun and sweet in all the best ways. I was excited to read the next book in the series, especially because I loved the character of Naomi, and was curious to see her story play out.
But overall this book didn’t do it for me.
Shameless, the sex-positive website Naomi co-created with Clara in the first book, has taken off, and Naomi is now working as the co-CEO. So far so good. The whole premise of the plot is based on the fact that she wants to expand her work and do a lecture series on modern intimacy, but because she’s a former porn star, no one wants to partner with her.
What I don’t understand is why Naomi is trying so hard to work with colleges and universities in the first place? It doesn’t make sense that Naomi—a supposedly strong, bold woman who goes for what she wants—would just sit around waiting for permission. Also, it seems like Shameless is so well-established that she could have just started doing it herself, and used the website to generate audience interest. I’m not a business major, but it seemed like that would have been the most obvious place to start; you can’t wait for opportunities, you have to create them.
The pacing of the story—and the development of Naomi and Ethan’s relationship—was absolutely glacial. Because it takes them so long to finally get together, the stakes don’t seem high at all.
I also wasn’t a fan of their relationship in general. For one thing, all of their problems are because they don’t actually communicate with one another. They’re supposed to be experts on modern intimacy (at least Naomi is), yet they can’t even sit down and have honest conversation about where their relationship is going!
And for a book that’s purportedly sex positive, there really isn’t that much sex in it. I’m not saying that there needs to be sex on every single page, but it just doesn’t ring true that Naomi would be so chaste for a huge portion of the story; it was already well-established in The Roommate, that she is someone who is very in touch with her sexuality. Maybe Danan was trying to illustrate that modern intimacy is supposed to go beyond just sex, but it doesn’t work. Naomi and Ethan’s relationship doesn’t really go deeper than their initial, lightning quick attraction to one other. Danan spends so much time saying that they have this intense chemistry together, but we don’t see it play out very often. Instead, I was left feeling like I was missing out on a major part of the story.
Ultimately, I think this book suffered from trying to do too much. There was Naomi finding her way back to her faith while also learning how to be vulnerable and open herself up to love; but she also found herself confronting trauma from her past. Then there was Ethan’s whole struggle to reconcile himself with the man he is today, someone who found solace in shul and leading his congregation, while also learning how to be vulnerable and open himself up to love. These are all really compelling pieces of a story, and I admire Danan for attempting to tackle this subject matter. But the book is only about 330 pages. That’s not enough time to do all of these different storylines justice, and as a result, the story felt a bit unfocused and aimless. Nothing was fully developed, and so the ending felt rushed because there wasn’t a truly satisfying wrap-up.
Content Warning: Anti-semitism, death of a parent, revenge porn (discussed, not shown), sexism, catcalling.
This is an open-door romance, meaning the sex scenes are explicit.