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The uncensored story of an open marriage.

“My husband gets into the car, leaving me with my boyfriend,” Winter writes near the end of her memoir. “Who would believe my description of this scene?” As the subtitle makes clear, the book is all about her open marriage, including its tawdry details, jealousies, compounded jealousies, and trips to a therapist (and a couples’ therapist). The author and her husband, Stewart, decided on an open marriage almost on a lark: She met someone cute at a bar, and Stewart encouraged her to go out with him—as long as she told him all the sexy details afterward. Things quickly escalated. In many ways, this is a brave book. Winter doesn’t try to make herself or her behavior look better in hindsight, and she never hides from complicated feelings. (Her wise therapist plays a starring role, and she deserves a standing ovation.) But the book isn’t exactly as emotionally honest as it’s advertised to be, especially in the first half. The author has a difficult time articulating why the idea of an open marriage appealed to her in the first place, and she doesn’t adequately explore other areas, especially related to her resentments against her husband. Winter also has a tendency to overwrite in places that don’t need it, so there can be too many adjectives, metaphors, or similes clogging the prose: “My throat dries up, as if I’ve swallowed sawdust. I’m unable to produce sound.” The narrative improves in the second half, in which Winter describes how she learned to prioritize her own pleasure, a valuable lesson. A subplot involving her mother’s open marriage—a phrase her mother never uses—is moving, and Winter describes it with patience and care.

An uneven but mostly engaging book that frankly takes on sex, jealousy, pleasure, and self-discovery.