The Intimacy Experiment by Rosie Danan

* * * 3/4

Naomi and Ethan will test the boundaries of love in this provocative romance from the author of the ground-breaking debut, The Roommate.

Naomi 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 named him one of the city's hottest bachelors and he became rabbi of his own synagogue. Taking a gamble in an effort to attract more millennials to the faith, the executive board hired Ethan because of his nontraditional background. Unfortunately, his shul is low on both funds and congregants. The board gives him three 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 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.

Source: NetGalley; ARC provided generously by publisher in exchange for an honest review

I enjoyed reading The Roommate last year (has it really been a year already?) and so was happy to jump into The Intimacy Experiment. One of the things I liked about The Roommate was I thought it presented a perspective on sex and sex workers that I hadn't considered before. The Intimacy Experiment continues to do that, but this time with added focus on how female sex workers are treated outside of the industry.

Naomi is now co-CEO of Shameless, the startup she runs with Clara from The Roommate. It's been wildly successful and now Naomi wants to take it to the next level by teaching in-person classes on sexuality. The problem is that no serious institution will hire her because of her "scandalous" past career. She is offered an opportunity at a networking event by the unlikeliest of people - a rabbi.

Rabbi Ethan needs to grow the size of his shul's congregation and he's thinking outside the box by asking Naomi to present a several weeks-long course of sexuality and dating. She thinks it's a ridiculous idea at first but then changes her mind. There's something so sincere about the rabbi's desire to appeal to a younger demographic and also address the matters that they care about. Ethan feels strongly that sex and religion can coexist spiritually.

Yes, this is all so weird and eyebrow-raising but Naomi has never been one to decline a challenge. She and Ethan are an unlikely pair and while tension builds up between them, it's a little slow burn before anything actually happens. Naomi might be tough as nails but she's not one to allow herself to be vulnerable. Ethan is just such a good guy, almost too good. He's so accepting and non-judgey about people in general, so he's not put off by Naomi's past. If anything, the more he's around her, the more he sees the uphill struggle she faces everyday to be taken seriously, or simply to be treated respectfully.

The more I think about it the more I realize that I was more attracted to the religious aspect than the romance. I know next to nothing about Judaism and so I naturally found Ethan's spirituality and philosophy interesting. There were a couple concepts that were referred to that made such perfect sense and hit me on a meaningful level. What I leaned in to most was that religion as Ethan was using it was not used to cast away or condemn but rather to include and uplift. Anyway, being that both the religion, and how it was being interpreted here were new  to me, I was drawn to it.

I questioned one detail in the plot. Naomi is such a resourceful, take action person that it's puzzling why she wanted to teach in traditional institutions instead of creating her own programming and presenting it at a venue of her choice. All I could guess at is that while she claims not to want people's approval, she probably does crave it just a little, and all her hard work and higher learning needs to have been worthwhile. 

Naomi, however, is impressive. Almost devastatingly so. Her tough exterior and approach to people and things can be abrasive to some but I liked how straightforward she is. One of the things she struggles with is an incident from her long ago past, back before she became an adult film star, that continues to affect her and drive her. Naomi does get to confront that somewhat by the end by stating things matter of factly. I thought it was a powerful moment for her and I think for a lot of women who'd want the bravery and opportunity to do the same. Danan has written an amazing female persona who's so complex, who's wiring is in knots from years of cynicism, self-preservation and punching out, and also shows her vulnerability and trust issues. This comes to the fore in one of the first intimate moments between her and Ethan. It's one of the most tender moments and a heart melter.

I loved The Intimacy Experiment in its parts. As a whole it's good. This is a complicated romance with so many factors inside and out affecting Naomi and Ethan's progress. They're an unlikely coupling but good together and for each other. This is a story that would please anyone looking for something a little unconventional, something that ruffles feathers and shakes things up.    

~ Bel

Content Warning: 

leaked nude pictures in high school resulting in harassment and slut-shaming (Naomi's memories); on page harassment in a bar when a random guy recognizes who Naomi is; Ethan's father's death (memory)

South of Sunshine by Dana Elmendorf

* * * *


What is Kaycee willing to risk for the sake of love? 
And what will she risk for acceptance?

In Sunshine, Tennessee, the main event in town is Friday night football, the biggest party of the year is held in a field filled with pickup trucks, and church attendance is mandatory. For Kaycee Jean McCoy, life in Sunshine means dating guys she has no interest in, saying only “yes, ma’am” when the local bigots gossip at her mom’s cosmetics salon, and avoiding certain girls at all costs. Girls like Bren Dawson.

Unlike Kaycee, Bren doesn’t really conceal who she is. But as the cool, worldly new girl, nobody at school seems to give her any trouble. Maybe there’s no harm if Kaycee gets closer to her too, as long as she can keep that part of her life a secret, especially from her family and her best friend. But the more serious things get with Bren, the harder it is to hide from everyone else. Kaycee knows Sunshine has a darker side for people like her, and she’s risking everything for the chance to truly be herself.

South of Sunshine was one of those books I noticed on the library's display shelf because of its cover. But underneath the endearing title and picturesque cover is a troubling story about how denying your true self can be destructive.

Kaycee is in her senior year of high school and itching to get out of her small town so she can drop the pretence. She has dated guys but mostly to deflect attention away from the fact that she really likes girls. This is a community that hasn't met the 21st century yet. Their narrow minds about different ethnicities and homosexuality keep Kaycee in the closet. When Bren shows up at the high school she's like a shiny, exotic new toy. She's automatically different because she's part Hispanic and she also happens to be gay. Kaycee feels a strong pull towards her but tries her best to deny any of it. 

"Because once again, just like I did last night and like I've done for all these years of denial, 

I think if I ignore it, it doesn't exist. That's what I have to do to survive this town."

~ Kaycee, p. 174

Reading this book was both maddening and eye-opening. Thank goodness Kaycee is a charming and sweet kid, otherwise this read would have been harder. Sunshine is a judgmental town, superficial to the core. You know it's bad when the churches are segregated and then there's segregation within the church based on social status. Here, within this dysfunction, is where Kaycee has to come to terms with who she is. No wonder her head and her heart are a mess! Religious bigotry is one of my few triggers. I can't ever grasp how any institution that should stand for love and caring can be so cruel to those who are at their most vulnerable. The town's bigoted attitude about anything they're unfamiliar with had me in a foul mood so imagine my surprise when Kaycee's mom and her best friend take the story in a different direction by making important revelations! It taught me an invaluable lesson that I don't always know where someone's fears stem from. It's easy to assume that intolerance can be boiled down to ignorance but those two showed me that there's more to that theory. 

"I remind myself that God loves me ..."

 ~ Kaycee, p. 123

That passage from self-awareness to self-acceptance can be intimidating depending on the level of support that is available. Elmendorf wrote Kaycee's gradual coming out so beautifully. She also gives us a glimpse of what coming out means to a teen - the joy it can bring, the toll it can levy, the love it can let in but also the weight of disappointment and hurt when someone you love refuses to acknowledge your truth. I hate that anyone has to even go through this simply because they want to be true to who they are. And it's unfair to have that person carry the guilt for anyone's lack of acceptance or understanding. When it comes to LGBTQ novels, I find it's the coming of age ones like this that I respond to the most. Therefore, I'm so glad I picked up South of Sunshine.  

~ Bel

Scarlett Undercover by Jennifer Latham

* * *

A voice-driven mystery perfect for fans of Veronica Mars.

Meet Scarlett, a smart, sarcastic, kick-butt, Muslim American heroine, ready to take on crime in her hometown of Las Almas. When a new case finds the private eye caught up in a centuries-old battle of evil genies and ancient curses, Scarlett discovers that her own family secrets may have more to do with the situation than she thinks -- and that cracking the case could lead to solving her father's murder.

Jennifer Latham delivers a compelling story and a character to remember in this one-of-a-kind debut novel.

This is a story driven by a smart, sassy and fearless young woman who knows what to say and how to get her way. Scarlett is often nonplussed when things don’t go exactly as planned. She manages to make the most out of situations and get to the point.

Scarlett is hired by a young girl who is worried about her older brother’s strange behavior as of late. She suspects that her brother has something to do with the recent death of a friend. This person’s death was all over the news and at first Scarlett's instinct is to decline the case. But when she sees how scared this little girl is, she can’t turn her back. After meeting this brother and getting strange vibes off of him, Scarlett thinks that her client may actually be on to something.

Scarlett is a resourceful young detective who isn’t afraid to seek out the truth. And as she digs further into this mystery, she becomes a target. It turns out that this case may hit closer to home than she realized as she starts to make connections between a cult-like group of kids and her father’s murder. Here the story branches out into the paranormal with some intriguing myths and history.

This was a fun mystery to read but in all honesty, I was drawn to this story after hearing that the heroine was a Muslim-American. I was curious to see how that would factor into the story itself. If anything, it exposes the reader to some of the customs and how those are integrated into their every day lives. Scarlett to a certain extent is more progressive with regards to her religion. Scarlett’s older sister, who’s studying to become a doctor, has found comfort in many of the traditions since the death of their parents. Both girls show a healthy respect for their beliefs though both practice differently.

However, this is only a small part of the person Scarlett is. She’s a compassionate person who looks after her client. She’s a fighter who refuses to be shut down. She's a snarky opponent who sees through people's bull. She's loyal to her family and friends. And she’s a young girl in love. All these aspects combined make Scarlett a fine role model for young readers everywhere. Scarlett Undercover is a fun read and I’m excited to introduce my daughters to this!

~ Bel

The Summer I Wasn't Me by Jessica Verdi - Review & Guest Post

* * * *

Ever since her mom found out she was in love with a girl, seventeen-year-old Lexi’s afraid that what’s left of her family is going to fall apart for good.

You are on the road to truth. Help is on the way.

The road signs leading to New Horizons summer camp promise a new life for Lexi—she swears she can change. She can learn to like boys. But denying her feelings is harder than she thinks. And when she falls heads over heels for one of her fellow campers, Lexi will have to risk her mother’s approval for the one person who might love her no matter what.

Lexi is a very mild-mannered kid. Although she’s on her way to New Horizons to be “cured”of her gay ways, she’s more concerned with her widowed mother who hasn’t been the same since her dad died.  His loss has been a huge blow to them. For Lexi, her mother is all she has left.  She knows she’s gay but out of love for her mother and desperate to keep her remaining family intact, she’s willing to sacrifice her own happiness and go to this conversion camp. Is it right? No, but I can sympathize with where she’s coming from. She views New Horizons not as an adversary but as a necessary step toward reconnecting with her mother.

At camp, she’s grouped together with three other people – Matthew, the jokester who’s out-and-proud, Daniel, a very confused and sheltered boy trying to reconcile his feelings with what it means to be a good Christian, and finally Carolyn, who’s there to fix herself so she can fulfill her idyllic dream of having a family and kids. Sparks fly instantly between Lexi and Carolyn though neither do anything about it. Lexi reminds herself constantly why she’s there and what she has to gain AND lose should this not go well.

Let me count the reasons why I liked this book...

1) The ensemble cast is fantastic. All the characters from the religious counselors, to the confused parents to the frightened camp kids, bring so much substance to this story. 

2) Lexi is great. She’s not antagonistic towards anyone. She approaches her situation gracefully and questions things. She's not easily brainwashed. At one meeting, the kids are told that their gayness is a “sickness”. This statement provides for a very powerful moment of introspection for her as she recollects when she first knew she was gay. At no point has she ever viewed this as a sickness or a disease to be rid of. And it wasn’t like it was this melodramatic journey to get to that point. She just knew and she had clarity. 

3) Every opinion, belief, viewpoint is given equal “airtime”.  Whether you agree with them or not, this book is about each of their individual experiences and their own personal journey. Each of the camp kids has their own reason for being there – some reluctantly like Matthew and some voluntarily like Carolyn. It’s what they figure out for themselves that’s important.

4) This is a difficult story to tell but it's done articulately and courageously with the very emotional and turbulent moments handled delicately. Thank goodness for that because I would've been a wreck. Still that doesn't erase the horrors of the inappropriate and questionable things that happen at camps like this. I'll be honest, I'd heard of such places but had never given them much thought. Now that I've had some insight, how anyone can think it's okay to treat people in such a debasing and sometimes abusive manner like those mentioned here, is beyond me. 

The Summer I Wasn’t Me is thoroughly engaging, disturbing and inspiring. The characters involved keep you invested but the camp and its procedures are horrifying. My hope for anyone who reads this is not to just cling to the same old arguments or any religious predisposition. Set all that aside if you can. In the end, I hope the thought turns to the importance of treating a fellow human being with compassion. And then I hope that thought turns to daily practice.

~ Bel

Now that you've read my take on the book, I am pleased to have the author herself, the brilliant Jessica Verdi join us today to discuss her book in further detail. Welcome Jessica!

Hi, Bel! Thank you so much for having me on your blog! I’ve been getting a lot of questions recently about my research process for The Summer I Wasn’t Me, so I’m hoping I can use this opportunity to discuss that a little!

This was a very research-heavy book, being that I personally have never been to a conversion camp. But because this world is so secretive, so purposefully hush-hush, there was only so much research I could do before hitting a brick wall. The things that go on at these camps are not only incredibly morally unethical, but emotionally (and often physically) abusive, and in many cases illegal. These kinds of programs have already been outlawed for youths in New Jersey and for all people, regardless of age, in California.

The bulk of my research consisted of doing a lot of technical research on so-called “reparative therapy” (the techniques and methods they use, the argument for the work, etc.), reading first hand accounts from people who have been to camps like these, and watching several documentaries. Every single “exercise” you see in the book came from research—I didn’t make any of that stuff up, including the horrifying events that happen (no spoilers!) in Chapter 29. In fact, one of the hardest parts of my research was watching YouTube videos of that very type of thing. It was extremely difficult to watch kids going through something like that, but I knew I owed it to the accuracy of the story to get every detail, even ones as awful as that, correct.

I was recently asked if I came across anything in my research that was just TOO much to put in the book, and I said no. Not that I didn’t come across some of the most terrible forms of abuse I’ve ever encountered, but I NEVER felt compelled to protect the people who run these programs, or downplay anything that happens there. This book was, from the beginning, going to be real and raw and honest—I’ve never had any interest in sugarcoating it.

The people in The Summer I Wasn’t Me of course are all fictional, and I made the physical setting up as well—the multiple cabin setup in the Virginia mountains felt right to me for the story, but I can’t be 100% sure of its accuracy. Basically after I did all the technical research, I let the characters and setting and story build up around it. It was interesting to be able to almost create a new world for this book, sort of like one would do when writing fantasy—the only difference being, sadly, these conversion programs are all too real.

Thank you Jessica for sharing your eye-opening research with us! You can learn more about Jessica Verdi and her other books by visiting her website at www.jessicaverdi.com or follow her @JessVerdi  And thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for arranging this guest post.

~ Bel

A Million Little Snowflakes by Logan Byrne

* * * 1/2

Oliver Hurst has always been abnormally normal.

His grades are horrible, his best friend just left for Utah, and he's depressed. His overly religious parents don’t help, especially since they control every facet of his life. One stupid sentence said in desperation gets Oliver tossed in an adolescent psych ward, where his depression and fears become even more of a reality.

When Oliver meets snide, tough girl Lacey Waters he doesn't think his life could get any better, that is, until she becomes the ray of sunshine he has desperately needed on his cloudiest of days.

BiblioJunkie Nat and I have occasional conversations about the impact of religion on our lives and how we perceive it as adults with families of our own which is why A Million Little Snowflakes appealed to me.

It’s painfully clear how Oliver’s über-religious mother controls her children. Any wayward move, no matter how innocent, means church counseling. Sometimes even worse. In this particular case, all he does is mention that he’s been feeling depressed lately and she takes him to the pastor who begins to perform an exorcisim on him.  Apparently the devil needs to be driven from his body. Oliver views all of this as unhelpful nonsense. At dinner, in a desperate attempt to deflect attention away from his poor SAT results he's been hiding, he blurts out that he wants to kill himself. It’s absolutely not true and it’s not exactly the brightest thing to say. To deal with this his dad immediately checks him into a psych ward.

As bizarre as it is at first, it becomes a mini vacation for him to be away from his stifling household. He’s finally able to think clearly about where he’s at in his life. Getting to know the kids who are in there with him offers him the chance to see that plenty of other kids come from dysfunctional situations as well. Lacey especially captures his attention because she’s the complete opposite of him. She initially despises him but warms up to him as she realizes that she would also like something different.

Oliver is remarkably introspective. Instead of seeing his stay at the psych ward as a negative, irrational move on behalf of his parents, he sees it as a mental respite from his home life. He finally has a chance to freely voice his own opinions as when he’s in one-on-one sessions with the psychiatrist. While I didn’t like the automatic prescribing of pills which it didn’t appear that Oliver needed, I did like that he was given the space to think aloud.

As a protagonist, Oliver is one of the nice guys. He’s not a rebel, at least not in the normal terms though his church would see it otherwise. He’s simply a teenage boy who wants personal space and the ability to speak for himself. He needs his parents to recognize that and accept him for it. Oliver’s opposition to his mother’s ultra-religious thinking causes a major rift. That is perhaps one of the main points of the story – acceptance. How should acceptance work and on whose terms? And if there are terms, can it truly be considered acceptance?

Logan Byrne’s novel undoubtedly gave me plenty to think and he did so without involving too much melodrama. I will say the ending caught me off guard slightly even though I was waiting for something to happen. I gasped and then thought, “Really? That’s how this ends?”. Don’t worry though because it doesn’t take away from how wonderful this story is.

~ Bel