PositiveThe Guardian (UK)What makes Shon Faye’s memoir about love so refreshing is that it resists heteropessimism, and tries to do something more hopeful ... Blaming your failure to find love on capitalism, as Faye does here, feels a bit of a reach to me ... Love in Exile is more enlightening when Faye suggests specific changes we can effect–on an individual level–to make our relationships more enriching ... The best writing in this book acknowledges that we fall in love in a capitalist patriarchy, but doesn’t pretend that women are only ever passive victims of those systems ... Love in Exile is sincere in a way that reminds me of bell hooks’ 1999 book All About Love ... Like hooks, Faye is prepared to mine every experience, and share every hard-won lesson to try to get her reader to love in better ways–even if those lessons are, in their very earnestness, exposing. I find her vulnerability generous ... The end of this book is, crucially, optimistic ... By the time I put down this book I felt hopeful about men, and heterosexuality in general–which, considering I read it in the aftermath of a breakup, is no small thing.
Gillian Anderson
MixedThe Guardian (UK)Sometimes shocking ... The disclaimers suggest that some of the women are editing themselves as they write. It’s a shame, because the best contributions in this book – such as the one about breastfeeding a cashier – are erotic precisely because they are a little depraved ... Want seems hyperaware of its place in a culture that is liberal enough to produce a children’s show called Sex Education, but also seeks to tidy up sex and make it palatable ... As a result, some of the stories in this book feel too self-censored to be truly erotic. If you’re looking to get off, Nancy Friday’s daring original is more likely to do the trick. Even so, Want makes for addictive reading.
