I think I’m in the minority here but I really liked this! I did think the main character was naive and selfish, but aren’t we all sometimes?

This was a messy but propulsive read! I have enjoyed Ada Calhoun's other work, but didn't love this much as her others. Fans of Hannah Pittard's work will enjoy this!

Calhoun has written something both brave and genuinely entertaining—a novel that tackles open marriage with intelligence and surprising humor. The setup feels refreshingly honest: a content wife whose husband suggests they explore what their "narrow labels" force them to exclude from their lives. What follows is messy, sexy, and psychologically astute.
The unnamed narrator's voice is perfectly calibrated—self-aware without being precious, funny without undercutting the emotional stakes. Calhoun captures the giddiness of new attraction alongside the terror of potentially destroying a good thing. The "very best kind of hell" that breaks loose feels both inevitable and shocking.
What elevates this beyond typical midlife-crisis fiction is Calhoun's refusal to judge her characters or offer easy answers. The exploration of desire versus stability, individual fulfillment versus family responsibility, feels genuinely complex rather than predetermined. The supporting cast—friends, lovers, family—all feel like real people navigating their own complicated lives.
The prose sparkles with wit while maintaining emotional depth. Calhoun writes about sex and longing with refreshing directness, and her observations about marriage and friendship ring consistently true.

I really enjoyed Crush, which was my first read from Ada Calhoun. I read it on a trip home from vacation, done in two short flights and a brief layover. The language and references are evocative of my letters written between me and my college English major friends (complimentary). My only complain is that I wanted more detail from the last third of the book -- how things unravelled and were put back together, but as the title suggests, this is a book about a crush, not the reality of life afterwards.

⭐️⭐️
Crush
By Ada Calhoun
Publisher: Penguin Group Viking
Pub Date: 2/25/25
I struggled with this one. The style was off for me. I appreciate it’s supposed to be written more like a poem than a novel but it felt lacking.

Calhoun's portrait of a woman who finds and falls in love with her intellectual equal, with whom she's addicted to talking and sharing every thought, was effective and well done.

A book about an open marriage and the navigation of boundaries. A marriage that was flawed and a woman who is unfulfilled. It made for a pretty predictable story and ending. This really did nothing for me.

Tried this one but it wasn’t for me, ended up not finishing around 30%. May try again in the future.

I'm very interested in talking about this man.Paul and his wife. They had a real good marriage , but she liked to flirt with men. He suggested an open marriage and she went for i It was interesting how she had different people , but she really liked it was Dave . This was an old flame from her days in school. Explain the relationship and it was interesting.As you read the book , he also took somebody as well. They had boundaries but they didn't last for Long She fell in love with Dave. And we meet him different places on the writing Circuit. She would also fly out to California. Two meet him as well. She had a He said as well and he was part of the story. As you read the book, find out Different parts of Her Life and his Life as well. It was a great book

This was a page-turning, thoughtful meditation on love, selfhood, and agency—I loved reading the narrator's reflections on the romantic choices she'd made so far, and the depiction of falling deeply, deeply into a "crush" was one of the best I've ever read.

The narrator of this novel drove me a bit batty, and I felt like I was hanging on the precipice of a life imploding at any moment with this story, and yet I couldn’t stop reading and wanted to see how everyone’s choices played out.

Crush is a smart, raw, and sharply honest look at marriage, longing, and what happens when a seemingly stable life starts to unravel. The narrator—funny, self-aware, and totally relatable—finds herself questioning everything after her husband floats the idea of an open marriage. What follows is a deep dive into past crushes, unmet desires, and the messy truth of midlife.

Ada Calhoun writes with wit and emotional clarity, capturing the tension between responsibility and the quiet ache for something more. It’s introspective and unflinchingly real, but also incredibly readable.

If you’re drawn to stories about modern relationships, identity, and the chaos of wanting more while having “enough,” this one hits hard in all the right ways.

Crush by Ada Lovelace is a novel that reads more like a memoir—deeply introspective and internal, almost to a fault. The entire narrative unfolds through the protagonist’s thoughts and musings, which leaves the supporting cast—including her husband and the man she falls for—feeling underdeveloped and one-dimensional.

Though it’s framed as a story about navigating an open marriage, that theme feels more like a backdrop than a focal point. The emotional and relational complexities you'd expect from that premise are barely explored. Instead, we’re left with a stream of consciousness that often feels aimless, and by the end, I wasn’t quite sure what the book was trying to say or accomplish.

If you’re drawn to character-driven novels with rich interiority, this might work better for you—but if you’re looking for a compelling exploration of open relationships or dynamic character development, Crush might leave you wanting more.

What makes Crush stand out is its vulnerability. Calhoun writes with a blend of strength and softness, unafraid to examine the contradictions of love and the way it lingers over time. Her voice is intimate and reflective, drawing readers into deeply personal territory while also touching on universal themes—regret, obsession, and the stories we carry with us.

Rather than follow a traditional narrative, Crush unfolds like a journal or a long, unsent letter—rich with emotion, striking in its candor, and beautifully crafted. It’s a slim volume, but it resonates far beyond its length, offering a raw, relatable look at how the past continues to shape our sense of self.

Thoughtful, poetic, and deeply human, Crush is a compelling read for anyone who has ever loved deeply or looked back with questions. Calhoun captures the sharp edges of memory and the soft echoes of feeling with grace and insight.

Read this if: you're into messy, honest explorations of desire, feminism, and the many forms obsession can take

I really loved the central premise of this book: a woman diving headfirst into the anatomy of a crush—not just the fluttery, fun parts but the obsessive, sometimes unflattering stuff too. The narrator is unapologetically selfish at times, which felt refreshing. She’s not trying to make herself palatable or likable—just honest.

The blend of memoir and cultural critique mostly works. I especially liked the way she connected her personal experience to broader questions about love, longing, and the way we’re taught to shape ourselves around other people. There’s a boldness to it that I admired.

That said, the historical and academic bits did get a little repetitive—at times it felt like the same ideas were being rehashed in slightly different ways. But even with that, I was fully along for the ride.

It’s sharp, smart, and a little chaotic—in the best way. A great read if you’re interested in the emotional mechanics of obsession, or if you’ve ever asked yourself why you’re crushing on someone in the first place.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group / Viking for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Crush is the story of a married heterosexual couple that is clearly not an equal relationship. She seems to bring home the money and take care of the household chores while he seems to not. At some point he comes up with the idea that she indulge her love of kissing (which he does not share) by kissing different men. It would also be something of a turn-on for him, knowing that she's doing this.

Of course, this small crack invites a ton of change into their marriage as the boundaries move constantly. When she starts an epistolary relationship with an old college friend, she finds that there is more there, and she begins to explore.

Even though the couple goes to a therapist who focuses on polyamory, theirs is not a healthy polyamorous relationship. An open marriage is more like it, but even that isn't quite right. Honestly, I don't know why they kept up the pretense; neither seemed very happy in their marriage and they seemed mature enough to accept that.

This book starts out with the main character telling us about her ability to have men/boys get crushes on her and how she loves kissing and learned at a young age not to kiss too much or she'd get a bad reputation. But then this talent was never shown (at least I didn't notice), so I'm not sure why the author felt it was important to say.

The more books I read about unhappy middle-aged couples following their passions (whatever they look like) outside of their primary relationships, the more I wonder what I'm missing. I have a hard time feeling anything for characters who come off as selfish and narcissistic. They seem to want a healthy relationship (doesn't have to be monogamous or "traditional," just has to be loving/caring), but they do everything in their power to sabotage it. It's the collateral damage (mostly the kids) that I relate to.

I wasn't a fan of All Fours and I'm not a fan of Crush. Plenty of other people are, and I'm happy for them.

My thanks to NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Viking Penguin for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

🌶️ HOT TAKE: For a book intent on exploring a nonmonogamous relationship, readers will have an uphill battle trying to defend it.

🧶 THE SUMMARY:
A literary exploration of a middle-aged couple’s foray into nonmonogamy. The narrator is a successful ghost writer with an adult son, who is bored in her relationship with her husband, a (primarily unemployed) creative. He suggests that she start kissing other people to spice up their relationship, but neither is prepared for her to fall in love with another man.

💁🏻‍♀️ MY THOUGHTS:
🔸 I don’t think I’m alone in this, but I read this entire book thinking it was a memoir but found that although it’s “inspired” by the author’s experience, it’s labeled fiction. I don’t think this will appeal to traditional fiction readers. The narrative style is extremely reflective and almost exclusively focused on the narrator’s experience (and limited perceptions and views), which will likely be exhausting for anyone expecting a more balanced approach.

🔸 Ultimately, I did enjoy the concepts that were explained in the book and did find myself thinking about this book after I finished it, which I consider a good sign. It would have been more compelling, however, if the main couple’s relationship made more sense. I found it unreconcilable that the main obstacle of their relationship was physicality, yet the narrator never revealed what he brought to the table that made her stay, taking it so far as to rule out financial stability (he was unemployed and lavish), familial inclinations (he wanted to stop at one kid so they did), and intellectual stimulation (what she got from her boyfriend instead) to name a couple. It was hard to understand why nonmonogamy was the answer, instead of just divorce.

Thank you to Viking Penguin and NetGalley for the ARC, provided in exchange for an honest review.

A middle-aged woman has done everything right, only to have her very lame husband suggest that they should open their marriage. At his suggestion she embarks on flirtations, one of which leads to deep love/ limerance. The second half was a bit like a commonplace book, which would have annoyed me if the quotations weren't so excellent. I think it would have been more satisfying if the narrator had done something wild-- but she was conscientious and morally impeccable to the end.

Ada Calhoun is a talented writer. I enjoyed reading this book, however, the narrative was a little confusing. It was called a novel, but it read like a memoir, written by maybe a not so reliable narrator.
The protagonist was a multi dimensioned character, a bit narcissistic, but full of life, deliberation and emotion. Her spouse seemed to be an immature jerk throughout, never growing as an adult or changing.
She was fond of developing "crushes". Flirting with other men seemed to stroke her ego. She and her husband decided to have and open marriage, but each got jealous and possessive if the other was seriously interested in someone other than themselves. But at least she grew from the experience.

CRUSH by Ada Calhoun is a curious book. Billed as a novel, it reads exactly like a memoir and has no discernable novel-like qualities to even categorize this as autofiction. The unnamed protagonist is in an almost 20 year marriage with a man she has an 18 year old son with. They have a good life, are happy in most regards, but he suggests opening up the marriage and, lo and behold, things go tits up.

Immediately she falls head over heels in love with an acquaintance and it gets extremely uncomfortable for the reader (at least, for me!) Like, cringe level embarrassing as we are subject to page after page about how perfect they are for each other and how she is completely obsessed with him on every level. I have always found the idea of crushes fascinating, so I'm continuously excited whenever a book tries to grapple with the phenomenon, but unfortunately in this case, it's like a slow motion train wreck and I kind of can't believe this was made into a book if it is indeed the author's true experience.

Full of quotes about love that often overwhelm the text, I did enjoy the writing that shone through. And I certainly don't fault the characters for exploring polygamy or blame them for infidelity. It's just that I'm not sure why this story specifically was told and I wish someone had told the author that baring your soul completely isn't always the best case scenario. I think I would have liked it more if it was more like an actual novel with a plot and better defined characters. Pick a lane!