The narrator of Middle Spoon appears to be living the dream: He has a doting husband, two precocious children, all the comforts of a quiet bourgeois life - and a sexy younger boyfriend to accompany him to farmers markets and cocktail parties. But when his boyfriend abruptly dumps him, he spirals into heartbreak for the first time and must confront a world still struggling to understand polyamorous relationships. Faced with the judgment of friends and the sting of rejection, he's left to wonder if sharing a life with both his family and his lover could ever truly be possible.
It’s no fun being a ‘Middle Spoon,’ or reading about it ... An experiment in polyamory proves poly-problematic ... Preachy ... The limitations of an epistolary novel are many, and Varela is to be commended for trying to pull it off ... Gives short shrift to the novel’s secondary characters.
Touching yet provocative ... The novel explores the beautiful complexity of unorthodox, progressive family dynamics with tenderness and humor in equal measure.
