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Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage [Hardcover]

Jenny Block
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)

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Book Description

May 27, 2008
Jenny Block is your average girl next door, a suburban wife and mother for whom married life never felt quite right. She operates from the assumption that most couples who are curious about or engaged in open marriages are in fact more like her—normal people who question whether monogamy is right for them; good people who love their spouses but want variation; capable parents who are not deviant just because they choose to be honest about their desires.

In Open, Block paints a down to earth picture of how an open marriage can work, and specifically why it works for her and her husband. In dissecting other people’s strong reactions to her choice, she explores the question of why cheating is more socially acceptable than open marriage. In part, she concludes, the lack of models for successful functional open marriages is such that the general public is not yet equipped to handle treating it as anything other than abnormal.

Open challenges our notions of what traditional marriage looks like, and presents one woman’s journey down an uncertain path that ultimately proves that open marriage is a viable option, and one that’s in fact better for some couples than conventional marriage.

Frequently Bought Together

Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage + Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships + The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures
Price for all three: $50.26

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jenny Block writes for various US publications including Women's Health and www.ellegirl.com. She also has work published in the books It's a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters and Letters to my Teacher, as well as in the forthcoming book, Have I Got a Guy For You: Fix-ups and Blind Dates Coordinated By Our Mothers. In addition, her writing has appeared in Chow, Pointe, Virginia Living, Style Weekly, Tango, Richmond Magazine, and Literary Mama. The inspiration for Open stems from the piece, "Portrait of an Open Marriage" (attached), which ran in Tango, and was reprinted by Cosmopolitan Germany and The Huffington Post. Jenny holds both her Bachelor's and her Master's Degrees in English from Virginia Commonwealth University, where she taught composition for ten years. She lives in Dallas, Texas --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 280 pages
  • Publisher: Seal Press (May 27, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 158005241X
  • ISBN-13: 978-1580052412
  • Product Dimensions: 1.1 x 6.3 x 9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #613,607 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jenny Block is the Lambda Literary Award winning author of "Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage" (Seal Hardcover, June 2008 and Seal Paperback, March 2009). She writes a weekly column for the Dallas Morning News publication Quick called "Sex Talk with Jenny Block" (quickdfw.com). Jenny holds both her BA and her MA in English from Virginia Commonwealth University and taught college composition for nearly ten years.

She writes for a wide variety of publications and websites, including huffingtonpost.com, yourtango.com, American Way, Veranda, the Dallas Morning News, the Dallas Voice, edgedallas.com, literarymama.com, Spirit, chow.com, and ellegirl.com. Her essay "And Then We Were Poly" is included in Rebecca Walker's book, One Big Happy Family: 18 Writers Talk About Polyamory, Open Adoption, Mixed Marriage, Househusbandry,Single Motherhood, and Other Realities of Truly Modern Love (Riverhead Hardcover, February 2009), which received a starred review from Kirkus. Jenny's essay "On Being Barbie" is included in book "It's a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters" (Seal Press, March 2006) edited by Andrea Buchanan (The Daring Book for Girls).

Jenny has appeared on a variety of television and radio programs, including Fox and Friends, The Glenn Beck Show, The Tyra Banks Show, Good Morning Texas, The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet, foxnews.com (online video), Playboy Radio, The Alan Colmes Show, The Young Turks, and BBC Radio. "Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage" was written up and/or reviewed both nationally and internationally in and on a variety of publications and sites, including Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Glamour, Marie Claire, Curve, Observer UK, Maxi (Germany), Psychologies (UK), Playgirl, NPR's Morning Edition, The New York Times, feministing.com, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Daily News, 2: The Magazine for Couples (Canada), wow-womenonwriting.com, and the Baltimore City Paper. Jenny has also spoken in bookstores and other venues all across the country, including Georgetown University and The Science Museum of Virginia.


Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
115 of 139 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The Bookslut review nails it: [...]

I have no issue with the practice of polyamory. My issue is with the messenger. Jenny is a clever woman who easily wins people over with her warm demeanor and self-deprecating wit. However, I cannot take what she says at face value. Her book is supposed to be about open "marriage", but it has been (rather sheepishly) dedicated to her girlfriend. This subtle but cavalier gesture underscores the self-centered attitude that drives the story within.

We learn of Jenny's amazing power to attract youthful lesbian lovers who previously identified as straight ("whee"). We learn how she cheated on her spouse for the simple reason that she really, really likes having sex with other people (who doesn't?). And we learn how her husband is "the rock" in a marriage where he seemingly only exists to help her reach "the sky"... her girlfriend. How nice. I'm sure every spouse, male or female, aspires for such a role.

I agree with Jenny that our culture is overdue for a reexamination of monogamy. This simply isn't the book to accomplish it. Jenny is bisexual and has an arrangement that allows for male and female lovers if she so decides. However, other bisexuals practice a form of "gender monogamy" in which only partners of the same gender are allowed. Still others consider themselves sexually monogamous but engage in extramarital emotional relationships. Essentially, we can live as we please as long as it is for the betterment of everyone involved. Which is why it would be nice to hear the argument from her husband's perspective instead of exclusively from a person who is so gung-ho about wanting it all, at any cost.

If mainstream America is ever going to buy into this lifestyle, we need more than lip service and a ring on the cover.
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23 of 27 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Open should be Closed July 12, 2010
Format:Paperback
I am an extremely open minded individual with many friends who are in open relationships. It's what works for them, and I respect that. Jenny Block does not seem so open minded, as she simply berates and puts down monogamous relationships throughout her book. She compares monogamous relationships to "big 80's hair," by saying these relationships are unhealthy, impossible to sustain, and are only good for keeping up appearances. I picked up this book hoping to get an insider's view on why open relationships work, but was instead treated to a 270 page thesis about why my monogamous relationship is antiquated and doomed to fail.
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70 of 92 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars A Stunning Memoir June 5, 2008
Format:Hardcover
Jenny Block has produced a stunning memoir in "OPEN: Love, Sex and Life in an Open Marriage." In writing about relationships and marriage, Block writes what other authors rarely put into print. Her's is not a memoir about finding Mr. Right, nor is it a comic memoir about finding a string of Mr. Wrongs. This is not about her experiences going through an awful divorce, and it is not about how she discovered herself after leaving her husband. This is not a traditional coming out story, neither is it a tortured tale of her life lived deep in the closet. Jenny Block's memoir is about challenging conventional wisdom. This memoir is an attempt to shock the reader awake with the clear message that anything is possible, as a couple, as long as it is engaged in openly and honestly. She admits that her story could have been a more traditional one of infidelity and divorce had she lacked the courage to think in radically different ways. At the same time she acknowledges that her solution, a polyamorous marriage, may not work for everyone. What she is adamant about, in retelling her experiences, is that no one has to settle for the standard answers. When your marriage is on the verge of divorce, when the boyfriend whom you love dearly is just not satisfying you anymore, these are not merely times when one should despair, according to Jenny, these are the times when one should get creative and get honest.

This begs the question, has Jenny Block saved her marriage or destroyed it? How one answers this question, after reading this memoir, is really a testament to how one feels about monogamy. If one feels that monogamy is essential for a marriage then the only answer one may accept is that Jenny Block's marriage ended when she took other lovers.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Meh February 13, 2011
By Lars
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
For someone that's spends a large part of the book with a "Woe is me, no one wants to understand my open marriage" point of view, Jenny Block is certainly quick to deem the alternative (monogamous marriage) as "outdated". Block has a very passive aggressive way of writing that seems to argue for open marriage by putting down monogamous marriage at every chance that she gets. Also, a good 60% of the book reads like a textbook. In reading the book I felt like I was in a one-way conversation with someone that believes that she has all the answers, and if you don't agree with her then clearly you haven't transcended your outdated ways yet.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Ever since I came across Jenny Block's blog post on the same subject - Open Marriage, I have been wanting to read her book. Finally ordered it on Amazon and read it.

The book is about open relationships, the focal theme being honesty with one's partner(s) - even if painful at times. It deals with questions of "why open marriage as opposed to separating", how the author makes it work in her life, the difference between an open relationship and cheating on one's spouse. There must be a lot of others who quietly live an open marriage without writing about it or exposing themselves to public criticism/debate. The author claims to be a "poster child" for open marriage - in this she has certainly succeeded. The book certainly helps bring to the public view a subject that is controversial and mostly unaccepted by society.

But I must say overall, it was somewhat disappointing - it did not seem to have much value-add over her blog post - almost everything in the book has already been said in the blog, in a more concise way. The book could have be edited to probably half its length.

Besides, it is a single person's (or at best a couple's) point of view on how they are going about an alternative life-style. The author states this clearly - it is just the way *she* has defined open marriage - based on the "rules" acceptable to her husband and herself. What would have been a better treatment of the subject is research and exploration of other definitions of open relationships - a broader view.

In the book, she talks about how not to expose her 10 year old daughter to unnecessary details of her sex life. Fair enough. But how does she reconcile writing a book about her open marriage, and insisting on honesty on all sides, and not exposing her child to her book?
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book about an Open Marriage..
This is a great book to get if your looking for perspective on open marriages from someone that is trying to figure out how to successfully incoorporate it into their marriage.
Published 15 months ago by Amberlygood
5.0 out of 5 stars I read it in one day...
I just read Open by Jenny Block- read and finished it in one day. It was that good (and yes, I am on break, so I have nothing else going on, but I would have read it that quickly... Read more
Published 17 months ago by PDXReader
4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read!
The book reads fast, at least for me. Couldn't put it down once I started to read it. Was a very emotionally detailed read and great for anyone interested in trying to understand... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Richard
5.0 out of 5 stars Open: Love,Sex and Life In An Open Marriage
Very interesting story about how honesty in a marriage can make Love more meaningful and extended to other personal relationships. Great book! Read more
Published 23 months ago by Tyrtaeus
5.0 out of 5 stars Eye-Opening
I've had my doubts about open relationships since I first heard of them. However, Block does an excellent job explaining just how hers came about and why it works. Read more
Published on April 10, 2011 by Diane
4.0 out of 5 stars I can't recommend enough
I simply can't recommend this book highly enough. There's stuff in here for people who like getting STDs. Read more
Published on November 18, 2010 by Denny S.
5.0 out of 5 stars An Incredible Insight Into An Open Life
I found this book to be very well-written and incredibly insightful. I enjoyed that Jenny Block truly made me understand the logic and psychology of why monogamy may not work for... Read more
Published on August 28, 2010 by Danielle
3.0 out of 5 stars Mediocre
This book was not exactly what I expected it to be. I bought it thinking that it would be... well what the author advertises it as, the story of love and sex in her open... Read more
Published on August 21, 2010 by Victoria Jempty
3.0 out of 5 stars All in all: A decent use of about 3 afternoons, but not great
Good points:

1. The author gave us a preview of what the book would be about, and so that was a bit nice. Read more
Published on June 25, 2010 by Lemas Mitchell
5.0 out of 5 stars A really enlightening look at a different style of marriage.
I really enjoyed reading this book. I think it underlines that a marriage should be what the two people involved think it should be. Read more
Published on October 3, 2009 by R. Chapman
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