Book Review: Chastened by Hephzibah Anderson

An interesting choice for a book review given that my most seasoned blog patron is my mother.  I believe we've officially come full circle since she was my sex-ed teacher in the 7th grade (I'm serious.  Who would make something like that up?).  This book is pretty self-explanatory:  Hephzibah takes a year off sex.  As if the thought of going without sex for extended periods of time is the ultimate deprivation for our generation (which certainly begs the question, ladies- who are these skilled creatures you've slept with who make it so hard to fathom going without?  Pray tell?). 

For a book premised upon the idea of isolating oneself from men to enable self-growth -- this book was entirely about men.  It was like being back in middle school, sitting outside on the lawn during lunch, dying to escape into a daydream about horseback riding later that afternoon while my boy-crazy girlfriend du jour obsessed about every single male on campus.  Enough already!  If I wanted to read another book about women philosophizing about society's gender roles while simultaneously fixating over every man in the room, I'd pick up another Elizabeth Gilbert novel.

Yet for her lack of female focus and stream of consciousness literature review-style prose, Anderson does write very well and has some note-worthy (even if not novel) points, mainly that sex ends the conversation that is so important between two people getting to know each other.  And hook-ups are the last place to look for real romance.  Ladies:  please tell me you knew this...

xo