I feel seen! This book is speaking to me and helping me answer questions and work on myself. What a great way to start the new year. I've delved into Emily Nagoski's first book Come As You Are as well.

This is an okay book. I feel like I learned something new, and there’s some helpful advice here and there, but some parts are just too long and not very helpful. I like that all chapters end with a tl;dr section summarizing the main topics - that was helpful for those less interesting chapters. Overall, I think is worth a read, and particularly if you can get your partner to read it as well.

As a Sexuality Educator with a focus in Asexuality I was thrilled with the inclusiveness of this book and how Emily made space for people to just not want sex and to have different ways of accessing pleasure and arousal. When social scripts around sex often mandate a level of desire or attraction it can be very difficult to envision a relationship that doesn't follow those scripts. This book explores different ways couples may connect and access pleasure and joy in their relationships and how to move into a space of shared sexual connection for those who find such connection fulfilling. This book is sure to be the go-to guide for people in long term relationships who want to prioritize shared pleasure without the pressure of performance or obligatory sex.

Great info and advice! I appreciate that a rarely talked about subject was given the spotlight in this book. Great for couples and having conversations.

Thank you NetGalley and Emily Nagoski!

I enjoyed this book. Nagoski is like a thoughtful older sister who brings the reader back down to earth. She demystifies and debunks the myths that pervade women's sexuality culture and leaves us comparing ourselves to unrealistic expectations.

I have not read any of Emily Nagoski's other books, so I didn't know what to expect. I thought this was a good approach to a topic that many may find taboo or have been told was taboo. It's great for couples to read together and discuss all the topics in the book. This is a book that has something for everyone. There may be some things that you don't relate to but that is quickly followed by something you do recognize in yourself. I think the most important statement she says is that we are not broken if we don't want sex all of the time or if we do want it all of the time and that it's okay to be "different." Recommend this for anyone but especially couples that have been together for a long time. Communication is so important as time goes by.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for advanced copy, and I give my review freely

This is more than just a book about having a healthy sex life in a long term relationship, it contains advice on maintaining a healthy long term relationship just in general. Which makes sense the more you think about how there are different levels of intimacy and what intimacy means to each person.

Overall, this is not a one size fits all. There will be topics and advice in this book that won’t apply to you, as that happened to me. There’s a chapter in particular that uses a house as a metaphor that no matter how hard I tried just didn’t really feel revolutionary to me so maybe I didn’t fully get it. That being said, this has facts and wisdom I’ve happily highlighted that I think is great advice. I also found this to be inclusive- with the caveat that like the author I am also a white woman so take that for what it’s worth.

I personally haven’t read Come as You Are so I can’t compare if this imparts new information but I found it very informative and well written. If the blurb intrigues you at all I’d give it a read, it’s not overly clinical either and easy to understand. Thank you to Random House/Ballantine Books for this eARC.

While I’m not in a long term relationship, I liked Nagoski’s previous books and writing style and wanted to see what else she was researching. I almost think the two parts in this book should be flipped as I found part 2 to be the more elementary/science background of the two while part 1 was the more practical application. I will say I found the gender sections to be a bit reductive - while it’s one perspective, sure, I think saying inconsistencies amount to societal messages is a broad generalization. Overall this book was a bit of a skim for me at this point in my life but maybe would be helpful down the line.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A great read and reminder for folks married more than a few years but probably not long term. Some great information for reigniting that spark and actively working to connect with your partner. Thank you for the ARC!

This is the 2nd book of the authors that I have read (The first being Come as You Are). I find her candor and insights on sexual intimacy to be informative. While some of her couple and problem examples didn’t relate to me personally – I do think that this book has enough helpful insight and tips that made it worth reading. Thank you to Netgalley and Ballantine Books for the Advanced Reader Copy!

As someone who has struggled with intimacy in marriage for years, I appreciated the practical advice in this book. We are given various scenarios and examples of the advice given, so we aren't left wondering how to.

I loved how Nagoski recontextualized trust and trustworthiness. I love that we are able to see how a foundation of intimacy fuels a successful long term relationship. This book would also be great for those people who are younger and more inexperienced in sex and intimacy as well as family and marriage therapists.

Well researched and written- and probably most useful to those who have been married for around 10 years or less or those who are at the beginning of a relationship. There's some good advice and it's got a generous spirit. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Emily Nagasaki continues to offer her straight-forward advice and signature humor, this time to long-term couples, in Come Together. Although many of the insights may seem like common sense, it may be just the thing you need to hear. I’ll always read whatever she’s writing!

Interesting book about sexual relationships. This book adds on to her previous books within the same genre.

I was so glad to hear this book existed. I really related to Come as You Are. Come Together was so relatable. I bookmarked so many pages. I love the explanation about the gender mirage and how a lot of how we are is due to the gender expectations put on us. I have pages to read to my spouse, too.

A great book for long-term couples. I loved her first book, and benefitted greatly. This book was helpful to open up dialogue and conversations within my own life

Nagoski has written a very readable, affirming book exploring sex within long-term relationships. As with Come As You Are, Nagoski uses extensive science and research to back her insights, and she is relentlessly positive and patient as she covers all the bases. I can’t imagine anyone who would feel left out of consideration on reading these pages. There were parts that were more and less interesting to me just based on my own background and situation, but I think the chapter on gender hit home the most. Her “It’s a Girl! Handbook” and “It’s a Boy! Handbook” are must-reads, equally funny and heartbreaking/infuriating. Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group, and Ballantine Books for a digital review copy.

When I look at my early highlights, I'm reminded of why I thought this book was heading for 4+ stars: solid, practical insights in abundance, many of which were the best kind of insight, the kind that make you smack yourself in the forehead because they're blindingly obvious once they're pointed out, or because you knew whatever-it-was all along but keep managing to forget it.

Here, have a few:
- cuddling after sex is the best predictor of sexual satisfaction
- if your partner's not interested in sex, maybe take some of the housework (or whatever) off their plate so they're less tired and stressed
- 'The idea of a “skilled” lover is a myth; unless you’re trying technically demanding BDSM practice like breath play, the only “skill” you need is the ability to pay attention to your partner and to your own internal experience at the same time.' <-- This one might be my personal favorite, though there's plenty of technically demanding BDSM besides breathplay, like please practice your aim if you want to do any significant impact play, okay?
- Don't assume! That's my summation of a number of Nagoski's points: don't assume your partner wants or needs to come; don't assume that "anal play" necessarily entails (see what I did there?) penetration; don't assume that sex has to take any particular form to be enjoyable.

I have quibbles with some of these nuggets, like the one about urgency being the enemy of pleasure. Hasty sex can be smoking hot, come on. To be fair, though, one of Nagoski's throughlines is the difference between spontaneous desire ("I'm so horny!") and responsive desire ("Oh, hey, this is getting good to me, let's keep going!"), and as a rule, when you've been together for a while and/or when the life responsibilities are piling up, the kind of urgency that turns sex into another chore is a real boner-killer.

Nagoski spends most of Come Together on the subject of what emotional and mental states encourage or impede sexual pleasure and openness to sexual pleasure. The underlying advice here is (as I keep saying) useful: identify the emotional states that hit the brakes on sexual feeling, and find ways to move from those states to ones that enable you to hit the accelerator. (Don't blame me, that's Nagoski's metaphor.) I was less enamored of her framing -- the requirement to make a sort of house plan of your psyche in which each state is assigned a room and doorways are located in keeping with which state leads to which others. But what seems like a boring project to me, other people might find enlightening, who knows?

Especially toward the book's end, but occasionally throughout, Nagoski descends into platitude and woo. I rolled my eyes hard at this, for example:

In her book, You Belong, mindfulness teacher Sebene Selassie noticed that “reactive” and “creative” are the same word with the C moved. “What does the C stand for?” a friend asked her. Curiosity, was her answer.

This is one step up from "noticing" that two people's names are anagrams of each other and deciding that this means they're mortal enemies or whatever. Curiosity is doubtless a good attitude with which to approach self-examination whether or not in a sexual context, but why does that point have to be couched in coincidental nonsense?

This sort of thing -- of which, as I said, there's more and more as the book progresses -- had me all ready to assign 3 stars. But in getting ready to write this review and looking over my highlights, I remembered how much of value Nagoski offers. So: if the anagrams and emotional house plans work for you, great. But if not, I'd say try not to let any annoyance or impatience with them get in the way of the good stuff, of which there's plenty. "Judgment is the real thief of joy," Nagoski remarks. She's not wrong.

Are you in a long term relationship that just doesn't spark like it used to? If so, then this is a book that you need to read. Emily Nagoski gives us clear ways to look at things in a new way and concrete ways to talk to our partners about the issues that we need to talk about. This is definitely a wonder tool in the toolbox!

Good informative book for improving sex in long-term relationships. I did not find it groundbreaking, but there was some helpful information that anyone could use. I appreciated the diversity of gender & sexuality in the relationship examples.