Polytical

This week, Grant Denkinson has reviewed three books which discuss or focus on polyamory

Love You Two by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli (2008) is a novel aimed at young people of secondary school age. I found it a warming and interesting read as an adult. An Italian-Australian young woman is thrown to discover there is more to her family’s relationships than she had been told as a child. Pina goes to discover more about ways of loving within her family and amongst her friends, including polyamory. She travels while processing her thoughts and emotions and then returns to navigate the seemingly stifling norms of her extended family and Italian ex-pat community as well as the image conscious younger women’s world of her friends. The author researches “rainbow realities” in usually more academic practice so the plot is drawn from real situations and the dialogue is likely to be authentic and contemporary. Aside from explaining to a younger reader that some of the terminology should not be used outside of the subcultures described, I’d recommend this book to younger readers and also to adults.

The Husband Swap “based on a true story of polyamory” by Louisa Leontiades (2012) is the story of a woman, our narrator, and her husband opening up to a relationship with another couple and how it progresses for her through various twists. I found the book contained big slices of the emotions, both joyful and painful, that I’m used to reading on polyamory fora when people describe their poly lives in detail in the midst of living them fully. I appreciated the detail of the feelings and worries and dreams while also finding the plot hung together plausibly and readably.

Threesome by Nash Popovic (2010) was introduced by the author at Polyday in London. Our fictional narrator has moved to UK from Eastern Europe and holds to his personal philosophy of love and autonomy in forming a couple of loving relationships with women at the same time. I found the language simple and the plot quite linear so this was a reasonably quick read. I still find it novel to see polyamory represented in fiction and certainly recognise the character of the narrator, seemingly contrary in following his own developed path rather than the mainstream.