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the attachment theory stuff is fine and good, even neat sometimes when contextualized to non-monog, but at the end of the day it's still like pop psych attachment theory lol. that's easily the book at it's best tbh, and it's also the least novel contribution.
it hardcore struggles from trying to be evaluatively unopinionated on forms of poly while simultaneously being explicitly normative, and the actual understanding and insights disappoint real hard as a result.
it frequently lapses into an descriptions of relationships that would make even the most shallow "relationship anarchist" roll their eyes. a predictable failure mode of trying to speak to such a breadth of relationship models, its kinda just embarrassing for the philosophically sensitive ones.
a lot of the situations presented in the book are like impossible to sympathize with skissue shit, like yea ik you're trying not to induce shame or feelings of not being good enough but idk vro sometimes you just gotta fix ur shit and get gud
the whole thing suffers from that-one-friend-thats-too-woke syndrome and i feel like i'm listening to a zillenial-coded therapy speak tiktok
there's a bunch of authenticity and truth and ontology bullshit but that kinda goes without saying we're playing psychology
she introduces an ungodly amount of unhelpful distinctions that are extremely uncomfortable and the thought of anyone actually using them in their relationships is actively repulsive. and even the ones where i could *maybe* see something salvageable, i really think you'd be better off without the
concepts altogether. idk maybe it's helpful scaffolding for some but you gotta throw that shit away asap pls. and like half this shit i kinda look down on you if the scaffolding is necessary for you in the first place.
honestly i just wasn't the audience. it's very generalist and cursory and not rigorous at all. the last two thirds was pretty focused on practical advice for circumstances i would never find myself in because i'm not like 50 years old with mono brain worms