Jake and Anny are a happily married young couple who find themselves increasingly attracted to an unconventional sex life after randomly picking a vacation activity from their hotel's guide book. The sensual massage Anny gets as a result, while relatively tame, sends both their imaginations along a path of arousal at the idea of Anny being touched and pleasured by a man other than Jake.
While this is very much a book about sex, and we gain almost no insight into the two main characters' back-stories or interests, author Matt Coolomon elevates the novel from its somewhat base concept in two major ways. First, he writes impeccably, in a prose style that's fluid and enjoyable, yet never draws attention to itself . And second -- and more importantly from my perspective -- he takes the time to make both Jake and Anny feel like real people by giving them both sweet, kind-hearted dispositions and a healthy dose of uncertainty over the lifestyle they're fantasizing about. Their personalities remain appealing and sympathetic throughout, even if social mores would insist that Anny is being a slut and Jake a passive wimp. I did occasionally have some unease over the degree to which Anny enthused about receiving extramarital ejaculate ... there's a blurred line as to whether she's genuinely delighted by the process or if she's exaggerating for the sake of increasing her husband's enjoyment of their mutual perversity. Similarly, I felt at times that Jake's behavior seemed more aimed at appealing to the fetish of cuckolding fans than like an entirely natural response. But the relationship between these spouses ultimately won out over these doubts on my part. Each of them has such a great affection for the other, and such a profound interest in making the other happy, that their exploration of this particular kink feels almost appropriate ... and I say "almost" because an element of the fun comes from this being an illicit, taboo undertaking, and that requires the characters and the reader alike to feel some measure of disquietude about it.
In many ways, this is a book that can very much be judged by its cover -- which ordinarily might not be a great compliment. But in this case, the cover really does tell you what you're getting into: it's overtly sexual, and clearly about one single-minded thing ... yet it also evokes a certain purity, beauty, and sweetness along with its prurience.
If the cuckolding genre doesn't fundamentally repel you, and if you like reading stories about nice people, where the conflict is all about the characters struggling with their own desires and not with each other, then I highly recommend this book. Coolomon is a talented writer who knows how to create a slow simmer and then bring it to a frothy, messy boil at just the right moment.
As a closing comment, I'll say that the whole "cuckolding" sub-genre strikes me as a bit weird and difficult to assess from a feminist perspective. I'm of the impression that the audience for these tales is overwhelmingly male, which leads to a sense that the willingness of the female characters is exploitive. Yet, at least in Cooloman's version, the subject matter inherently puts the majority of the power in the woman's hands. So I'm on the fence about the genre, though I can endorse the book for readers who don't stand on the "no way!" side of that fence.
