I am not sure how I ended up with this title. It goes against my beliefs and I couldn't even finish the book.

I'm always interested in memoirs and books where people talk about experiences I have heard about from a distance. Polyamorous was a mix of memoir and nonfiction in that Jenny Yuen was offering her perspective as someone who is Poly and she was also providing a broader view of the experience from an informational point of view. My preference was for her perspective, I liked the humanity of her experiences and appreciated the vulnerability of sharing that perspective rather than taking a distant and academic one.

I feel a need to preface this with: I am NOT interested in this lifestyle AT ALL! Haha. I just enjoy reading books about people with different lifestyles, on the fringes of society, etc. Perhaps this is why I also read a ton of true crime and psychological books.

Anyway, onto the book. I thought it was pretty interesting. It seemed to be well researched and contained a lot of statistics and stories from quite a number of people. I didn't know much about this lifestyle except for what I've seen occasionally on reality TV, and it was definitely eye-opening. I still don't personally agree with the lifestyle, but the author explained that it's sometimes intrinsic to someone, like sexual orientation. If that's the case, who am I to judge?

The personal stories of people who live this lifestyle were definitely the most interesting parts of the book. The statistics and history bits weren't quite as interesting, but informative nonetheless.

DNF
Polyamory is multiple romantic relationships with everyone’s knowledge and consent. It’s not an excuse to cheat. The author states she is not an expert on polyamory not the face of polyamory. Jenny- the author goes on to talk about her two relationships in her life> Adam who was thirty years older than she was, and Charlie who she wants to start a family with. Than there is the story of Cornelia Foss, Polyamory earliest roots were from the late 1840s to 1870s. It can be traced back to upstate New York in Oneida to a commune that practiced “complex marriage.” in Oneida the three hundred people who lived there were all considered to be married to one another. In the 1970s the second wave of polyamory evolved as a direct result of the sesxual revolution and intertwined with the bisexial and free love movements. The third wave of polyamory was thanks to the internet. The web helped sexual non-conformists to connect. In 2009 Newsweek speculated whether polyamory was the next sexual revolution. Polyamory is often incorrectly lumped with polygamy- where it’s usually a man who has many wives under his control. In 2018 enter enter Polyamory in your facebook search bar and the results reveal hundreds of groups around the world.
I tried I couldn’t even get into this book. Maybe because it is written by someone in canada so a lot of it has to do with the Canadian polygroups I don't know the US is bought in a lot. I even type in polyamory as was mentioned here and there are a lot of groups so did at least rouse my curiosity even at least one here in Columbus Ohio but otherwise this was just too dry for me. Not sure what I expected but this wasn’t it. My fault not the authors. I wouldn’t have scored it if I didn’t have to. I couldn’t keep my interest going. This just wasn’t for me. I am sure there are others who will really enjoy this book.

The book Polyamorous by Jenny Yuen is a book written by a journalist who lives with her two male partners. She explores the many faces of the lifestyle along with how it can work for some and how it does not work with people who thought it would work. She goes over topics to give the relationship the best chance of succeeding .
The topic of Polyamory is not a topic that I have a lot of knowledge about and I picked the book because I was curious . The book is very informative and gives many examples of the different types of polyamory and the people who are living this lifestyle.
The beginning of the book was the most enjoyable for me , she explains about her experience with a monogamous relationship and her decision to "cheat". In the end both relationships ended . Soon after she began to explore the possibility of a polyamorous relationship with two men who have a relationship with her but not with each other . This was a great part of book for me , I loved reading about her relationships and the ups, downs, pitfalls. and her family and friends and their reactions to her new family dynamics.
The next part is a brief history of Polyamory and how it looked in the past and how it is manifests today. Very informative and kept my interest. She also went over the difference between Polygamy and Polyamory and the differences are immense .
The last part of the book is full of interviews of real relationships , she explores different structures, legal rights, raising children , boundaries, jealousy , etc. This part of the book began to get bogged down with more and more case studies . The book started to feel like a text book and while the first few were interesting as more and more were covered it became difficult to stay interested.
This would be a great book for those interested in pursuing the lifestyle or for those that care for someone already living the Polyamorous Life.

*****This ebook was provided by Netgalley for an honest review*****

I got an ARC of this book.

I have read a few poly books, been openly poly for a decade now, and sexuality has always been a focus of my research. So I would say I am at least mildly versed in poly knowledge. That being said, I still learned from this book and I am incredibly thankful for the author for writing it. 

The book alternates between interviews with people who are actually poly and living in different relationship formations and engaging in different relationship styles, which usually would be a big miss for me. Yuen handled the interviews well and told a story, instead of it being question and answers. The interviews were short and would raise awareness of difficulties faced in the relationships from internal (issues with the people in them, feelings) and external factors (families, location, the community itself). There was a great section on how the poly community is not perfect. There was a big highlight on race and the issue of unicorn hunters. It was fantastic to see a book actually acknowledge the issues I have seen in the community. 

There was even the two sides of unicorn hunting brought up, but I wish there was more on it. I run an online queer trans poly group and the biggest thing is the male identified person always posting for the couple asking for a female to join them. It really irritates me and they tend to leave the group really quickly when they realize that the queer and/or trans people in the group aren't into that. That they want a totally different style. It just irritates me that unicorn hunting is seen as the go to and that the one penis policy is alive and well even in the queer community. 

I did have issues with some of the writing, some of it being the message and some of it being my personal issues. One of my biggest issues is that every single interview that mentions veto power/boundaries and throughout the book whenever veto power/boundaries was brought up the idea was it was bad and horrible to limit your partner at all. It became a small theme that any limits on your partner at all were bad and should never be there in the first place. All of my relationships have had limits and had a veto power. That is perfectly fine if that is what the people involved need to feel secure and love. The way Veto power works in my relationships is a way for my partners to quickly differentiate between personal feelings about someone else and a serious red flag. They can veto someone, but it requires a great deal of talking about the issues. There has to be a legitimate reason such as "they punched you in the face without your consent" to the veto power to actually be used. It is just a way for my partners concerns to get that "high importance" label super quick and it is for the actual safety of me when it is used. People can't be vetoed because of personal issues or bad feelings, those have to be worked through and talked about. Yet, veto power has gotten this bad rap of being super limiting and making everything terrible. So has having any boundaries at all. Boundaries are healthy. They are necessary, but they are also ever changing. Boundaries and rules I needed at a beginning of a relationship aren't what I am currently needing. Rules I needed with one partner, I don't need with another. Boundaries are healthy. One partner I had thought it was a good idea for him to meet a couple offline at their house for their very first meeting, despite the couple sending off crazy red flags. Him and I had a vetting rule put in place after that, considering the outcome that was a needed boundary and rule for us to have for his safety and healing. My current partner doesn't have that need, so that rule isn't in place. Yet the book makes all rules and boundaries sound awful repeatedly. That is not the case. Let me say it again: boundaries are healthy. 

Another big issue I had was the need to bring up Dan Savage like he was an expert. He is far from an expert. I am far from an expert, but I refuse to have him speak for any community I am part of. 

So this book is a great book to read, but it is not perfect. The book has a crazy amount of resources for people. I highly recommend it with one caveat: boundaries are healthy, you just have to be upfront about those boundaries and why they are there. Have that conversation. Keep having that conversation because boundaries change all the time.

Polyamorous: Living and Loving More is an in depth exploration of polyamory and all the issues that can surround these relationships. Jenny Yuen makes this topic real through her honest discussion of real relationships and real people.

Polyamorous provides a very localised look at polyamory within Canada and often times provides very detailed social and historical context about the country. Despite being Australian and having very little understanding of the larger issues at play within Canada, I nonetheless found this local focus very grounding.

For me, a by-product of focusing on the one country, was that Polyamorous was very welcoming in it’s exploration of polyamory. That is, it demonstrates the prevalence of these little discussed relationships within one country. It discusses and tells the stories of people we wouldn’t necessarily read about. It welcomes and in it’s almost clinical discussion, shows that no one is alone – polyamorous relationships exist and they are all incredibly varied and different.

The actual content of the books focuses on many different aspects of polyamory. Topics such as jealousy, relationships structures, legal rights, and media perceptions are all covered within the book. Often chapters will focus on one or two examples or case studies of real people, as these issues are discussed and personal insights are offered. The inclusion of actual quotes and insights from people makes the chapters very nuanced, with each striving to demonstrate the many examples and ways in which polyamory can exist.

Polyamorous: Living and Loving More is different because it is a non fiction book that is not only respectful about its subject matter but personal. Yuen provides readers insight into polyamory as well as demonstrating that just as each person is different, so is each polyamorous relationship.

I would really recommended giving Polyamorous: Living and Loving More a read if you’re curious or interested in the subject matter. It is very well written and provides an excellent and personal reference point for the little discussed subject matter.

From the point of view of my incredibly limited (read: inexistent) knowledge about polyamory, this was a very interesting and informative read. It explains some of the histories and sociological mechanisms behind polyamory, and that the reason of it not being practiced up to basically, well, NOW, lies in the fact that throughout history, men were often allowed to have multiple partners (whether legally or not), and women almost never were. As that is now changing, as well as the understanding of sexuality, polyamory is slowly becoming more accepted and a way that works for some people better than monogamy would.

The book clears up a lot about how polyamorous relationships can work (because it seems there is a lot of variety and creativity in how a lot of these relationships function.) It also addresses the misconceptions of how most people will think that polyamory is only about cheating or sleeping around. For most people who practice it, it's simply a solution or a way to live, and being polyamorous means you are transparent - as in, it's the monogamous people who cheat, because in poly, the need to hide anything is eliminated. Polyamorous people don't need to lie because that's not how those relationships are built, and that's an important thing traditional societies need to understand. As the book says, polyamory is the antithesis to hooking up because it promotes transparency. And that nearly everyone's definition of poly is different, and the only way to work it out is to talk. It's a myth that there are no rules - the rules have to be carefully worked out if the relationship is going to work.

It also talks about the challenges PoC face in the poly world - if you're PoC, especially a woman, the polyamorous landscape might be decidedly more dangerous than for anyone else because of how fetishized PoC are and how white privileged people tend to dominate the poly communities. And not only that - since the media tends to whitewash everything, relationships not excluded, there is not a lot of representation, and when there is, it's usually got negative undertones, where it wouldn't with white folks in the picture (I mean, if you disregard the already existent negative undertones that the concept of poly usually gets in media.)

Must also mention, that this book mostly talks about poly communities in Canada.

Another thing... I want to clear up one misunderstanding another reviewer on Goodreads points out. Another review here states that they thought the book said that "watching pornography or having a celebrity crush" constituted polyamory and they felt indignated about this - I feel like they misread that, because the book clearly says that about some people's interpretation of infidelity, full stop. The quote says that according to a 2015 study, most people will have experienced some sort of infidelity - and the part about porn or the crush is directly quoted from there. Nowhere is polyamory mentioned - this is just a statistic about how people interpret infidelity. So I just wanted to clear this up, because I feel like it's unfair to misquote a book and perhaps offend some people or convince them to not read it because it was misquoted.

I thank the publisher for a free review copy. This has not affected my honest opinion or review.

Everything anyone could possibly want to know about non-monogamous relationships. I didn't realize that for some people watching pornography or having a celebrity crush constitutes poly activity or infidelity! None of this appeals to me personally at this juncture of my traditionally monogamous life, but when at times I felt at all uncomfortable with a perceived proselytizing vibe I had to stop and realize how unimaginably enraged I would feel if I were poly, or bi, or LGBT, or any other minority this book raises consciousness about.

I found many individual stories about policubes and multi-love interesting, and can totally understand how uncomplicated some of these situations might actually be, and how beneficial the increased support would be with caregiving and childrearing, etc. Journalist author Jenny Yuen makes me wonder if there is a correlation between polyamorism and exhibitionism, she certainly is very open as are many subjects of the stories she presents here.

A really interesting read on different ways of forming loving, committed relationships. I read Sex at Dawn and the Ethical Slut earlier this year and this book draws on both but is still very much its own thing. Honestly I on't think polyamory is for me but I am so glad to understand it better. You can learn a lot about managing your own relationships from people who can successfully maintain a polycule. Highly recommend both for those contemplating polyamory and those, like myself, who are curious and questioning.

4* An interesting read, certainly, but to me as a (boring?) monogamous person, this book makes it seem...

...as if being polyamorous is all about having your cake and eating it, in a way that I don't see bisexual or pansexual people doing.

I devoured this book, I found the subject matter fascinating, but not biological, as I tend to feel that being bi or pan (or more) is.

I'm sorry if this review ruffles feathers. I'm not judging, as I have no objections to whatever the next person wants to do, as long as they're a decent person and not killing/hurting/abusing others in their pursuits, whatever those pursuits may be. I'm relaying what I've taken from how this book comes across, and I'm not sure if it's achieved its aim, if it had an aim other than showing polyamory people as, well, rather greedy and selfish, though examples quoted seemed to show they were anything but selfish. What was its aim? To educate people? To make the author feel she's not alone, and in fact is part of a large community? To make people - generally - have sympathy and empathy for polyamorous people? I'm not at all sure.

I'm a 49yo het, happily married, monogamous female living in live-and-let-live London, and have worked with many people in the LGBT community, even as early back as 1987, am part of my employer's Rainbow network as an ally and work close by to 'everything goes' Soho, and yet I've never come across poly people and so wanted to understand more about the whole...thing. Or maybe I have come across poly people who aren't out, which would surprise me in liberal, accepting London.

Maybe the fact that I use 'thing' (I thought about phenomenon, but that gave polyamory too much importance, sorry) gives an idea of how I felt after the end of this book. I absolutely appreciated the author's research and detail and the various examples she cited, but 1) I've been left with the impression that a HUGE percentage of Canadians are poly and fairly open about it, 2) that most of these people are fairly hypocritical, or maybe excuse that by calling themselves true to themselves and 3) they're basically greedy and use an emotional excuse to have their cake and eat it. And as I mentioned above, I think that's entirely different to being bi or pan, as it's more a biological and mental drive to me, as a layperson.

There's no comparison between polyamory and polygamy, which cements my feelings about the book. It feels as if polyamorism(?) is a Western thing. It's all based on <Me, Me, Me>, or so it seemed. Yes, people are free to do what they want, and I didn't feel as if anyone should have acted differently to how they did/were described as doing, but, it did make us Westerners seem very narcissistic and <I Want, I Will Have> or as I've already said, <Me, Me, Me>.

This was an eye opening read, as I came away knowing what polyamory means, but not understanding it. Maybe I'm not emotionally or sexually equipped for it? Maybe I'm just to boring and beige? Like I say, let's live and let live, and thank you for the education.

This is a really interesting and well thought out book and having the opinions of others who are living a polyamorous lifestyle makes the book even more interesting. This is a balanced and informative look at this lifestyle and the differences within the lifestyle, and includes POC as well as LGBT lifestyles. I have had poly relationships and found that this book was easy enough to read for people who don't know about this relationship style but detailed enough for people who have experience of poly.

Interesting book, goes in depth studying the world of polyamorous relationships. It's a subject I didn't fully understand and wanted to study it before formulating my own opinion