Reviews

Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski

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conversationswithreaders's review

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

5.0

emiliespalding's review against another edition

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hopeful informative lighthearted reflective medium-paced

4.25

karenthlove's review against another edition

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3.0

That was like reading a boring term paper.

alexiab's review against another edition

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3.0

This book is not bad but it was not written for people like me, and I didn’t know that until I was already reading it. And I know, “not every book has to be about you” but I can explain.

It was a lot more therapy talk and a lot less education than I was expecting, but that may have been my own misunderstanding of what to expect. The author is writing like she’s speaking to someone rather than writing to a reader, which probably works well with someone who doesn’t read often, particularly nonfiction. While I think it works in an audio format - as it feels like I’m being spoken to by a therapist - this made me feel very disinterested in reading.

I know there are a lot of people, particularly women, who don’t understand their bodies and feel a lot of shame around their sexual pleasure, so I know this would be a positive read for them. The entire book reads as constant *constant* reassurance that your body is normal, your desires are normal, over and over and over.

As someone who does not feel any shame about their sexual organs or their sexual pleasure, this felt like a redundant read. I didn’t get anything out of it, because I didn’t require a therapist to tell me I’m normal. I wasn’t aware that this book was less educational and more emotional when it came to teaching about sex, and that’s where it didn’t suite me.

The way this book is talked about, I expected to learn something groundbreaking about sex that would change how I view it. I mean damn, the tagline insists it’ll “transform your sex life”. I know it’s a positive experience for a lot of people, so I’m reluctant to give it a low rating when I am not the target audience. However, I expected to learn literally anything new from reading it and I don’t think there was any information that had me go “huh, interesting” since I’m not a sheltered, uninformed person about sex. Again, not a bad thing, just not for me.