When Febos stops looking through the keyhole and turns around, she finds that being single feels like anything but a dry season; it’s the most emotionally and spiritually fertile time of her life ... I want to believe this is enough: that if you’re intentional, you can be someone’s partner without losing any of yourself. I’m not sure I do ... Thoughtfully argued.
Febos’s great power as a writer is pairing structural rigor with emotional disclosure ... Febos has venerated literary ancestors while scrutinizing her own choices. Some might deride attention to personal experience and sexual pleasure while our democracy disintegrates around us, but sex and love are energies that turn us toward each other in an era whose ravages are designed to create lasting isolation.
Febos is far from the first woman to have pledged celibacy, and she structures her memoir round stories of those who came before her ... Less welcome, though, are the metaphors ... Becomes too theoretical ... However, in the dating apps era when the taunting promise of romance is ever present, it’s always refreshing to read about someone who turns away.
The final product—which has been lauded as a timely entry in a 'feminist Zeitgeist'— feels less like a sweeping cultural statement and more like a small exercise in self-improvement ... there are so many upsides to Febos’s celibacy that her experiment feels frictionless. She both has no problem being alone and no shortage of desirable people who want to sleep with her.
Febos has written beautifully, brilliantly about her body, mind and that divine light we call, perhaps too simply, the spirit. Her personal narratives about obsession, sex, romance, addiction, art-making and the pressures placed on female bodies are written with candor, brio and compassion for herself and others ... The Dry Season is Febos’ most triumphant book to date ... An exciting chapter in Febos’ story, both for the ways her work continues to grow and for the elation we feel for her liberation.
Although a book about abstention, at its essence this story is about understanding, reclaiming, and celebrating pleasure, rendered sublimely and with wit. A gorgeous and thought-provoking memoir about how celibacy can teach us about love.
Bold ... Febos convincingly makes the case for serial daters to slow down and reflect on their past relationships free from the cloud of a current entanglement. As fascinating as it is liberating, this is not to be missed.
