Rosie Danan is one of my favorite voices in contemporary romance, and I was beside myself to score an ARC of her second novel 🤩 Thank you to Netgalley and Berkley Romance for a review copy; opinions are my own.

Rabbi Ethan Cohen is looking for innovative ways to increase attendance at his Los Angeles synagogue, so he hires Naomi Grant, founder of a sex startup and former adult film star, to lead a seminar on dating and intimacy. Naturally, it’s not long before the two of them are following Naomi’s syllabus as they pursue their own relationship.

This books feels purposely less steamy than Danan’s first book, “The Roommate.” “The Roommate” was about sex; “The Intimacy Experiment” is about, well, intimacy. Danan proves she can execute a plot without a plethora of sex scenes.

If you are a romance reader — or even just curious about the contemporary romance genre — Rosie Danan is an author I recommend. Her characters are well developed and the plot lines are fantastic. I flew through both “The Roommate” and “The Intimacy Experiment” and recommend them to anyone who wants to fall into a good romance novel. This one is worth the preorder

Well, WHAT a dear darling book this was. The Intimacy Experiment is the second Rosie Danan book I’ve read, and it is far more the book of my heart than the first one (for reasons I’ll get into ). Both books feature protagonists who are sex workers, which kind of rules? Apart from Aya de Leon’s romantic suspense series, of which I have read the first two, and A Gentleman Undone by Cecilia Grant, I don’t know that I’ve ever read a romance novel with a sex worker protagonist. So yay for that!

To nobody’s surprise, I melted like an M&M for this angry woman / soft man pairing. Ethan is a very gentle soul who just wants to achieve his goal of building a warm, inclusive congregation, and Naomi has spent years hardening her heart against other people in the certain knowledge that to do otherwise would be to allow herself to be hurt. (Again.) Their forced intimacy is of the subtype “shared project,” one of my very favorite subtypes, as it offers them the opportunity to get to know each other in a low-pressure way as they each slowly realize the other person is their ideal partner. And Danan doesn’t slack on the specifics of the project; this book is not exactly People with Jobs, but it’s at least People with Jobs-adjacent. I loved seeing Ethan coming up with ideas for his synagogue and Naomi for her seminar; to the point that I kept wishing those things were real, just so people who needed them could have access.

(My notes for the above paragraph said “prickly heroine / soft hero = GOOD”.)

The Intimacy Experiment also deeply explores the two characters’ relationship to their faith. Ethan is, of course, a rabbi, and Naomi grew up Jewish but has fallen away from the faith in adulthood. In this book, both of them are exploring their relationship not just to Judaism but to the structures of organized religion. Though Ethan knows much more clearly than Naomi what he wants from Judaism, both characters spend the book thinking through their core values and then working to find space for those values within their faith. Not to spend every paragraph being like I WISH THIS WERE REAL, but it did make me wish very deeply that there were some, like, Reform Catholicism that I could join up with. I don’t go to Mass regularly because I get tired of the Church’s hostility to so many things that matter to me, but I miss the rituals and the community. Anyway it felt like a huge piece of wish fulfillment to me, that these characters were given the space to embrace what they loved about Judaism within the context of their faith and on the terms of their faith.

As was the case in The Roommate, Danan never shames her protagonists for their careers. Naomi is comfortable with her work and proud of being a huge part of building a sex-positive porn company, and characters who feel vocally otherwise are given a thorough narrative slap for it. At the same time, the subjects of sex and intimacy are explored in a wonderfully delicate way, in the clear knowledge that these are two things that can be related, but don’t have to be related every time for every person. I loved seeing this play out in the sex and makeout scenes between Ethan and Naomi, where clearly she knows that sex with Ethan would be massively intimate, in a way that sex in porn movies has never been for her.

The emotional content of The Intimacy Experiment is so strong that it feels almost not worthwhile to gripe about minor things. There’s a bit too much faffing about on why Ethan and Naomi can’t date each other, none of which felt remotely convincing, although it did contribute to some fun moments, and I wanted them to just stop making weird excuses and date already. (Or else, of course, find better excuses.) But this is a minor gripe in what overall is an absolute doll of a book.

Note: I received this book from the publisher for review consideration. This has not impacted the contents of my review.

Thank you Netgalley, Berkely, and Rosie Danan for a copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

Rosie Danan knows how to pack a punch in her books! Watch out for her latest release, The Intimacy Experiment, yet another romance flipped on its head and completely unique.

Naomi is a powerhouse in this novel. I loved her fierce attitude and abilities to take taboo subjects and make them normalized. Her romance with Ethan was much tamer than her counterparts in The Roommate, but it was still sweet. The plot was unique and kept me interesting in seeing how their plans would form. Although, I did not always buy into Naomi and Ethan being a couple, I still loved each of them and found them endearing.

Solid romance!

What an absolute stellar follow-up to Rosie Danan's debut The Roommate. I am so glad we followed Naomi in this one after meeting her in the first book and I loved her romance. There were parts that felt a bit long in terms of the lecturing, but otherwise this was stellar.

I love the positivity in this series. While I think you could read this without reading The Roommate, I think you'll have a deeper understanding of the characters and their background by reading the first book first. This book focuses on Naomi (who is first introduced in The Roommate) and new character Ethan, a rabbi and one of LA's hottest bachelors. There are still some steamy scenes, but this rom com is so much more than that.

I didn't love The Roommate as much as everyone else seem to, but Naomi was an interesting character in that book. I decided to give The Intimacy Experiment a try based on that. I am so glad I did. This book was so much better for me. I loved both Naomi and Ethan.

Former porn star, Naomi, meets Ethan Cohen--a rabbi. A very sexy, bearded rabbi. They seem very different on paper, but are more alike than they know. Ethan needs to bring life and more of a younger crowd to his synagogue. He thinks having Naomi speak on Modern Intimacy will help with that. Naomi agrees as she is kinda infatuated with Ethan and his religion. I really enjoyed learning about Judaism, too, and how much the author brought it into the story.

This was more of a slow burn than The Roommate. There are steamy scenes, but it takes awhile to get there. I appreciated that with this book and their story. It was nice to see Naomi's edges soften and Ethan was just adorable and honest. There were times I just wanted to reach into the book and hug him, especially when he was embarrassing himself. Too cute.

Thank you Berkley Publishing and NetGalley for an electronic advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book was definitely unexpected. I LOVED The Roommate, and so naturally I’ve been excited to see what Rosie Danan brings to the table in Naomi’s story, and I finished it with mixed feelings.

What I liked: First and foremost, the concept. A pornstar and a rabbi? You’d be hard pressed to find an unlikelier pairing. But opposites attract, as is clearly stated here, since Naomi is an absolute firecracker and Ethan is - well, not. We’ll touch on that later.

I loved the overall sex positivity of the book, much like The Roommate, but I also love that Danan took to looking deeper into her characters, into what defines intimacy outside of just sex.

What I struggled with: This book starts slow. It took me getting halfway through before things finally picked up, and it felt sluggish. Nothing really happened with Naomi and Ethan until that point, and the chemistry by then felt forced.

I wish we’d gotten more personality out of Ethan. He and Naomi didn’t have many funny/enticing moments or much banter in general, and I would have loved to see more of Ethan’s science side given his history in teaching, or maybe some fun anecdotes from his past since it’s casually dropped on us that he’s wildly rich and ran in the elite LA kids club before turning to religion. He just didn’t have much personality for me, and it made it that much more difficult to appreciate Naomi’s attraction to him, as it felt like it came out of nowhere.

I love the messaging of this book, but I wish we’d gotten some more of the spice, chemistry and tension buildup Danan delivered in the Roommate. I’ll cross my fingers that her next novel will be a perfect blend of the heat of The Roommate and the sweet intimacy of The Intimacy Experiment!

I had such a fun time with this story and loved the characters and the relationship! (The chemistry was on fire). It was so great so see a complex and truly modern romance at the center of this story. I do think I enjoyed this one more than the previous - Naomi and Ethan are such a wonderful couple and I love them with my whole heart. The Modern Intimacy lessons were very well thought out and I loved having them as benchmarks both in the story and in Naomi and Ethan's relationship.

Wow, I LOVE THIS story . Like my heart is so full 💖. It’s so poetic , and raw, and I cried like twice and I just want to sit here and hold this story close to my heart.
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It’s a slow burn, but I love how Ethan and Naomi relationship gradually develope, I was falling in love as they do. I love that we have these two imperfect being , who wouldn’t traditionally be put together, but they are blend perfectly . I love how this story showcase the complexity of being human, that we’re not just one way, we are multifaceted , flawed, and oh so beautiful .
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Y’all, the writing is superb. So poetic and beautiful , gosh I love it !
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Naomi is a Boss and she know it but she also tender and has a heart of Gold. She’s smart and whitty and cares so hard about other. Ethan is just as sweet, these two gives you all the feels. What a great duo.

The Roommate by Rosie Danan was one of my favorite romance books of last year and I was eager to read her second book, The Intimacy Experiment. I had high expectations for this book, and I am happy to say it didn't disappoint. This book has so much going for it: Jewish representation, a bisexual boss b*tch heroine, a cinnamon roll hero, amazing female friendships, lots of swoons, and it's extremely sex-positive. It also has a surprising depth that you don' always get with fun rom-com. The Intimacy Experiment is not as steamy as The Roommate but it's just as exquisite! If you are looking for a modern, feminist, sexy romance, you have to read Rosie Danan's books!

Rosie Danan's voice continues to impress! I really love how the author focused on Judaism in this book -- I feel like we don't see this rep often in contemporary romance, and it was lovely to read about. RTC.

The Intimacy Experiment as a second book in The Roommate series truly surprised me at how much I enjoyed it. A lot of times the second book doesn’t quite live up to the hype of the first book in many series, but I have to say, this one surpassed The Roommate!

What I liked about this story was that there was much more of a focus on the development of Naomi’s and Ethan’s relationship and less about the physicality between them. Don’t get me wrong, it had it’s steamy moments, but Rosie writes the story where that is not the main focus, but instead, on the character’s which I really enjoyed. I also loved the sweet moments between Naomi and Ethan and how they supported each other to work through their issues.

Overall, the characters are super likeable and it was a quick and enjoyable read.

This review was originally posted on <a href="https://booksofmyheart.net/2021/03/30/the-intimacy-experiment-by-rosie-danan/" target="_blank"> Books of My Heart</a>
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<i>Review copy was received from Publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.</i>

I loved <strong>The Roommate</strong> so I decided to continue the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/311670-the-roommate" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em><strong>Roommate</strong></em></a> series. The primary character is Naomi Grant who was Josh's partner when they were porn stars. I could imagine how much more difficult it is to be a female sex performer.  I appreciated getting Naomi's history of how she ended up in the business and all her feelings and life choices.  While <strong>The Intimacy Experiment</strong> is flirty and funny, it also covers deeper topics.

Just as Josh moved on to be a sex therapist,  Naomi has developed a website called Shameless.  It has a few different subscription levels and provides sex education.  With the website very successful, now she wants to move forward with live lectures.  Since higher education doesn't seem very interested, she attends a conference hoping to make some personal connections with them, but she receives a teaching offer from a Jewish synagogue to teach a course.  Ethan, the rabbi, is unusual in his youth and good looks.

We get a bit of Ethan's point of view.  The board has given him just three months to revitalize the membership (which doesn't seem very realistic to me). He doesn't want to take members from established shuls, but instead to  reconnect with younger members who aren't practicing.  So he wants to offer something younger and more modern at the community center.

The Modern Intimacy course is brilliant. It touches on so many great concepts and feelings. I appreciated the idea that while intimacy is naturally part of sex, the intimacy is about trust and connection and does not have to include sex.  Of course, the board hates it, because sex and some of them are stuffy.  Of course, Ethan and Naomi are attracted. They both have some issues to sort through along with some personal learning and growth.  I loved the emotional journey and thought-provoking perspectives.

Aside from some inconsistencies and grammatical errors that are too be expected in an ARC, I really enjoyed this book. Not being jewish myself, I didn't fully understand some references, but nothing a quick Google search didn't assist with. This was a different premise than anything I've read before and I found it refreshing and I wanted to keep reading.

This is a personal preference (obviously) but there was a bit too much religion in this for me to enjoy it. Let me be clear, this has nothing to do with Judaism specifically, all organized religions make me equally uncomfortable. Half the book reads like a religious philosophy text instead of a romance. I was starting to think it wasn't supposed to be a romance since it was reading more as a woman's fiction novel but I reread the blurb to make sure.

Once we got to the actual romance portion I did begin to enjoy it more. Naomi's prickly exterior, born of trauma as a teenager, was just to cover her internal softness. Though she helped others find love and intimacy, she didn't quite think she deserved love herself, so she pushes away everyone first before they can drop her. I loved watching her walls crumble around Ethan.

I loved Ethan, his absentminded rabbi character just shined with goodness. He was a good man who wanted to do good just because he could. He was humble, kind, and always searching for answers to understand humanity and how we coexist, and how religion fits into that space. He had a lot of love to give.

There was an almost poetic quality to the writing that I don't remember from The Roommate, it was soft and beautiful and abstract at times. Overall it was fine, I did enjoy the romance portion, I just wish that would have been the biggest part. I loved Naomi and Ethan together!

"Love is something precious, right? Something coveted. Why shouldn’t people have to earn it?”
He wanted to tell her love was inherent. That it existed in many intangible forms. That she could build love by extending it. But something in the twist of her mouth and the guarded curve of her jaw made him swallow the promises. “But I think in the simplest terms, love makes surviving easier and everyone deserves that.”
Naomi flattened her mouth into a hard line. “Not everyone.”

We were thrilled to hear Naomi was getting a book after loving her character in The Roommate which we read last year. Naomi’s relationship with Clara and Josh from that book was rather complex and interesting making us eager to see who would win Naomi’s heart.

One thing Naomi didn’t count on was losing her heart to a man so opposite to her in so many ways. Naomi’s guarded; Ethan wears his heart on his sleeve. Naomi has her walls built a mile high, Ethan, in his role as Rabbi at the congregation Beth Elohim synagogue, gives so much of himself.

“What I’m trying to articulate is that you’re precious,” Ethan said, “not in spite of, but because of all the ways you believe you’re broken.”

Looking for a way to boost attendance and spark interest in his synagogue, Ethan Cohen enlists the help of Naomi Grant, a sex guru to run a series of modern intimacy seminars, and Ethan is more than a little smitten with her, but Naomi’s past is paved in pain and trust issues. She doesn’t even trust herself.

“I’ve spent my entire adult life in therapy learning to love myself because I believed that if I loved myself, I wouldn’t need anyone else’s love. But that’s not really how it works, is it?”
“No, I don’t’ think so,” he said softly.

But Ethan accepts her – he sees her vibrancy, her vulnerability and accepts her – her past, her present, her beauty, her flaws without judgment. Can the handsome, sweet, and very sexy Rabbi break down her walls? Can the old guard accept Naomi’s past and profession?

‘If he never saw another lovely thing in his life, he’d be okay. Naomi was filling up his quota. Infinitely beautiful.’

The Intimacy Experiment is a sweet slow burn romance that delves into love and acceptance and it’s full of heart, quirky characters, and some fabulous chemistry.

There was so much to like about this book. As a person who isn't religious, I'm interested in romances where the relationship and faith blend in ways that feel thoughtful and natural and heartfelt, and that was the case here with Judaism. I like seeing the journey of a character who has hardened herself learning to become vulnerable.

There were a couple of things I wish had been different. Because of the premise of the book (a series of intimacy seminars), many of the points the book was trying to make were done through literal lectures, which I personally don't enjoy reading about (or experiencing). This sentiment extends to the street fight that the male main character tries to avoid through a weird lesson. A little eye-rolly for me.

Still, an enjoyable and heartfelt romance.

This book was so delightful. Naomi Grant is a former sex worker and the founder of a sex-positive start up that empowers people - but especially women - to understand and communicate their sexual needs. She is keen to expand her platform to live lecturing, but finds that many doors are closed to her because of her past.
Meanwhile, Ethan Cohen is the rabbi at a small Reform synagogue which is trying to grow its congregation. When he meets Naomi at a conference, he decides that a seminar series on modern intimacy would be an excellent way to reach a new audience. And off we go.
I loved both Naomi and Ethan. Naomi has worked hard to become strong, successful, and impervious to the judgments of others - but this works best when you keep people at a distance. She's self-aware, cynical, and very good at reading others. She is also highly emotionally intelligent - it takes her about ten minutes into her first seminar to realise that she can't give a useful seminar on intimacy without showing some vulnerability herself, and even though this is very much against her usual creed, she is able to do this, and do it well.
Ethan, meanwhile, is a sweet, sincere, intellectual type who is all up in his own head and very good at overthinking things. He is the sort of person who, when faced with a rude and belligerent drunk, will attempt to start an in-depth pastoral conversation about self-reflection, self-respect and respect for others, and require rescuing by the more pragmatic Naomi (side note: the dialogue in this book is absolutely hilarious). He's a perfect match for Naomi, because he really is absolutely transparent - her cynicism finds no purchase in the face of all that idealism. Also, he is really hot, and, as he explains, being a rabbi means that he takes sex and intimacy seriously - but it certainly doesn't mean he abstains from it.
The relationship between Naomi and Ethan really worked for me, because each of them is strong in the areas where the other is weak, and they are very good at supporting each other and listening to each other (though... not always good at *talking* to each other). Also, the chemistry between them is electric.
The other thing I really enjoyed in this book was the exploration of intimacy in the context of faith and (in Ethan's case) a religious calling. I liked the conversations about Judaism, the shul politics, and the way the book grappled with Ethan's status as a rabbi making him 'public property' in various ways. I also liked the various different approaches to faith in this book, from Ethan's vocation, to Naomi's tentative exploration of the faith of her youth, to the mix of discomfort and pride from Ethan's more secular family at his choice of career. All of this was beautifully done.
My one quibble would be how Naomi handled the aftermath of the 'black moment' late in the book, which felt a little out of character to me.
But other than that? I really adored this book. It's sexy, and sweet, and funny, and it made me think. Highly recommended.

Perfect, loved each word of this. I look forward to more from this author. Plus the cover is my favorite. This author knows how to tell an intriguing story

I really enjoyed this title in the series. I felt it was more interesting than the first. It felt very tender despite Naomi's tough exterior. There were some points that I thought could have been developed more but overall enjoyable.