Busy Being Free: A Lifelong Romantic is Seduced by Solitude

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To describe a memoir as solipsistic may seem redundant, but Busy Being Free is solipsistic in the best way: that is to say, Forrest is hyper-aware that she is telling her own story.

But it becomes clear as the book progresses that Trump is a convenient peg on which to hang this retreat from intimacy. How wonderful to be privy to many sides of a marriage and what comes after it, how wonderful to be shown so vividly that the end of a formal relationship is not the end of life nor even the end of that particular love. I took comfort in many of the things she revealed she processed post divorce and her exploration of shame and disappointment.Read more about the condition New: A new, unread, unused book in perfect condition with no missing or damaged pages. This book is billed as a story of female emancipation, albeit a very straight, white, middle-class one. But this is an exquisitely female perspective, I was enraptured by it’s revelatory and poignant glory. Especially frustrating is that there’s no growth in this respect- she decides to be celibate for five years, and then needs her ex-husband to draw her out of her obsession with her new boy toy once she’s ready to date again.

At times I laughed out loud but I also nearly gave up on the book two or three times because the name dropping and superfluous vocabulary became irritating. This is a memoir about love and heartbreak, about sex and celibacy, about marriage and divorce, and what comes after that. I’ve really never read about sex and been so sharply reminded about how much it is tied up with the fundamentals of being a woman.

Refreshing to read about a women in her 40s who is still living and not just surviving with a life based entirely around other’s needs. a very easy read, i smashed this in two afternoons; i unashamedly love emma’s writing and as someone who was deeply invested in her marriage to ben mendelsohn, this was so so fascinating.

I wonder what it is like to live with a mind like Forrest's, which makes such shooting connections between things and sees a great pattern in it all. I've really never read about sex and been so sharply reminded about how much it is tied up with the fundamentals of being a woman. So it feels so familiar and cozy eg I started reading the sample and got furious trying to work out how to read the full book.But the fact that she has written about this midlife excavation with such ferocity and frankness is cause for celebration.