I think this book could potentially be very helpful for many cisgender women in long term monogamous relationships. The book discusses trauma and emotions quite a bit, which is important. It also asserts that everyone is normal, which is nice, but I doubt the sincerity of it.

Here are my issues, some of which are ridiculous things for me to even care about, but alas:
This book focuses exclusively on issues faced by cisgender women in long term monogamous relationships, those issues defined mostly as wanting to have more or less sex than their partner.
The book completely dismisses non-monogamy and polyamory out of hand.
What about single women? If you were an alien dropping in on earth and you happened to pick up this book to learn about sexuality, you wouldn’t even realize that single women exist.
I strongly suspect this book oversimplifies male sexuality, and that’s a problem. I didn’t pick up this book so I could read about that, but often the book compares women to men, and it just seems really oversimplify how men experience sex.
It’s not that analytical, but the author warns us about this up front.
I don’t think the word “dildo” appears once in this book. How??? Feel free to prove me wrong, though. 🍆 ( )

Ostensibly a book focused on women, I found this to be an incredibly useful and valuable book. I think it's good for all genders!

So many of the lessons have remained with me and helped me re-examine so many of the assumptions I'd had before reading it. Highly recommended. ( )

3.5 stars. I think this book is worth reading, particularly if you did not have access to comprehensive sex education when you were younger or if you have questions about how your body works. As someone who did have access to sex ed, I still learned some things from it (the first time I read it, which was several years ago). ( )

No secret ingredient, just you

The book is good if a bit underwhelming. It all pretty much boils down to accept yourself as you are, although that in itself is hard and takes a lot of work. ( )

This review originally appeared on my blog at www.gimmethatbook.com.

I won this book through a Goodreads giveaway! Thanks to Emily Nagoski and Simon & Schuster for contributing the book in exchange for an honest review.

There are many books out there claiming to be the best source of knowledge about the female body; but this one is pretty much on the money. Nagoski talks honestly about what women experience, and why. Her tenet is: we are all alike, but different, we are all normal.

Women may get their knowledge from social media, and therefore have an unrealistic image to live up to. Women may feel “broken” because their bodies don’t react the way they think they should. This feeling is insidious and permeates the brain and hinders sexual pleasure.

Nagoski explains that women have a “brake” and an “accelerator” and that they need to be aware of what hits them, in essence. She talks about “spectatoring” (thinking about yourself in a denigrating way during sex, effectively hitting your brake) and discusses how to love your body.

COME AS YOU ARE is an uplifting, celebrating, and positive book that all women should read. The ideas she puts forth are simple, and she includes worksheets and questions in the book that the reader can use to help them along their journey to better self awareness.

The author includes a chapter on anatomy, which is very thorough and should educate even the most sexually aware person! She also debunks the myths that women’s pleasure is secondary to men’s, or that the purpose of a female is just to procreate. Her message gives women power on every page.

Intertwined with Nagoski’s wisdom are 4 fictional women, each experiencing a different problem. As the book progresses, each woman’s relationship progresses, concurrent with what the author is saying. This way the reader can see how the principles are applied in real life.

What makes this book different from other self help books is that the solutions are put forth for both the mind and the body. It won’t matter if your sex drive is low or high, as the tenets will make many women feel better, both about themselves and about what they feel. Education goes a long way, and this is the author’s aim: to let women know they are normal, while teaching them why this is so. There can be no better message, especially in these times where the average female has a lot of negativity surrounding her. Every woman should read this book, then give it to their partner. There would be more happiness in the world if that occurred. ( )