Emily Nagasaki continues to offer her straight-forward advice and signature humor, this time to long-term couples, in Come Together. Although many of the insights may seem like common sense, it may be just the thing you need to hear. I’ll always read whatever she’s writing!

Interesting book about sexual relationships. This book adds on to her previous books within the same genre.

I was so glad to hear this book existed. I really related to Come as You Are. Come Together was so relatable. I bookmarked so many pages. I love the explanation about the gender mirage and how a lot of how we are is due to the gender expectations put on us. I have pages to read to my spouse, too.

A great book for long-term couples. I loved her first book, and benefitted greatly. This book was helpful to open up dialogue and conversations within my own life

Nagoski has written a very readable, affirming book exploring sex within long-term relationships. As with Come As You Are, Nagoski uses extensive science and research to back her insights, and she is relentlessly positive and patient as she covers all the bases. I can’t imagine anyone who would feel left out of consideration on reading these pages. There were parts that were more and less interesting to me just based on my own background and situation, but I think the chapter on gender hit home the most. Her “It’s a Girl! Handbook” and “It’s a Boy! Handbook” are must-reads, equally funny and heartbreaking/infuriating. Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group, and Ballantine Books for a digital review copy.

When I look at my early highlights, I'm reminded of why I thought this book was heading for 4+ stars: solid, practical insights in abundance, many of which were the best kind of insight, the kind that make you smack yourself in the forehead because they're blindingly obvious once they're pointed out, or because you knew whatever-it-was all along but keep managing to forget it.

Here, have a few:
- cuddling after sex is the best predictor of sexual satisfaction
- if your partner's not interested in sex, maybe take some of the housework (or whatever) off their plate so they're less tired and stressed
- 'The idea of a “skilled” lover is a myth; unless you’re trying technically demanding BDSM practice like breath play, the only “skill” you need is the ability to pay attention to your partner and to your own internal experience at the same time.' <-- This one might be my personal favorite, though there's plenty of technically demanding BDSM besides breathplay, like please practice your aim if you want to do any significant impact play, okay?
- Don't assume! That's my summation of a number of Nagoski's points: don't assume your partner wants or needs to come; don't assume that "anal play" necessarily entails (see what I did there?) penetration; don't assume that sex has to take any particular form to be enjoyable.

I have quibbles with some of these nuggets, like the one about urgency being the enemy of pleasure. Hasty sex can be smoking hot, come on. To be fair, though, one of Nagoski's throughlines is the difference between spontaneous desire ("I'm so horny!") and responsive desire ("Oh, hey, this is getting good to me, let's keep going!"), and as a rule, when you've been together for a while and/or when the life responsibilities are piling up, the kind of urgency that turns sex into another chore is a real boner-killer.

Nagoski spends most of Come Together on the subject of what emotional and mental states encourage or impede sexual pleasure and openness to sexual pleasure. The underlying advice here is (as I keep saying) useful: identify the emotional states that hit the brakes on sexual feeling, and find ways to move from those states to ones that enable you to hit the accelerator. (Don't blame me, that's Nagoski's metaphor.) I was less enamored of her framing -- the requirement to make a sort of house plan of your psyche in which each state is assigned a room and doorways are located in keeping with which state leads to which others. But what seems like a boring project to me, other people might find enlightening, who knows?

Especially toward the book's end, but occasionally throughout, Nagoski descends into platitude and woo. I rolled my eyes hard at this, for example:

In her book, You Belong, mindfulness teacher Sebene Selassie noticed that “reactive” and “creative” are the same word with the C moved. “What does the C stand for?” a friend asked her. Curiosity, was her answer.

This is one step up from "noticing" that two people's names are anagrams of each other and deciding that this means they're mortal enemies or whatever. Curiosity is doubtless a good attitude with which to approach self-examination whether or not in a sexual context, but why does that point have to be couched in coincidental nonsense?

This sort of thing -- of which, as I said, there's more and more as the book progresses -- had me all ready to assign 3 stars. But in getting ready to write this review and looking over my highlights, I remembered how much of value Nagoski offers. So: if the anagrams and emotional house plans work for you, great. But if not, I'd say try not to let any annoyance or impatience with them get in the way of the good stuff, of which there's plenty. "Judgment is the real thief of joy," Nagoski remarks. She's not wrong.

Are you in a long term relationship that just doesn't spark like it used to? If so, then this is a book that you need to read. Emily Nagoski gives us clear ways to look at things in a new way and concrete ways to talk to our partners about the issues that we need to talk about. This is definitely a wonder tool in the toolbox!

Good informative book for improving sex in long-term relationships. I did not find it groundbreaking, but there was some helpful information that anyone could use. I appreciated the diversity of gender & sexuality in the relationship examples.

Not my vibe and dnfed it. I just did not enjoy it and didn’t want to keep reading when I had so many other good books to read

I loved "Come As You Are" so I was super excited for this. It wasn't as mind altering as Emily's previous title, but this book didn't work quite as well for me. I think it was likely that I just wasn't the right audience for it, but it was still interesting nonetheless!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC!

I read this in tandem with "It's Not Hysteria" by Dr. Karen Tang and having finished them both within a few days of each other, I feel so much more in tune with my aging body. I loved "Come As You Are" and this follow up was such a good companion to it. The first was about your own sexuality and this was about maintaining a sexual relationship with your partner. Both are so critically important and both were so well presented by Emily Nagoski in these books.

Thanks to @netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. I wanted so much to like this book- Emily Nagoski’s other books Burnout and Cone as You Are were so important to me and left me with such amazing insight. But as a highly single woman who falls on the asexual spectrum I just have to acknowledge that I’m not the audience for this book. It’s still beautifully researched and wonderfully written but far less impactful. And I will say the final chapter on the “magic” really felt out of total left field. Interesting but so different from the rest of the book it was jarring.

An excellent follow up! It is very well written and informative. It takes the taboo out of sexual conditioning.
Maintaining healthy sexual relationships in your mature years, topped with some humor!

This is a great edition for any reader looking for easy to understand science.

A useful follow up to Come As You Are, with well researched insight into the unique challenges and opportunities of intimacy in long term relationships. Nagoski makes often overlooked issues approachable and engaging.

This was a mixed bag for me. There was some good content in here, but most of that felt pretty basic and straightforward. I didn't walk away having learned very much from reading this.

Highly accessible/readable title that deals with a common issue within long-term relationships - how to sustain a fulfilling sexual connection over time. The book is written in a very down-to-earth manner, highlights key 'example' relationships, is inclusive in dealing with a variety of different styles of relationships (i.e. not just couples, not only cishet, and not only monogamous). There is concrete advice, talking points, and exercises that individuals can use (though ideally they share them with their partner). There are also key chapters on gender roles written directly for cishet men & women that address the Gender Mirage, which were enlightening.

Overall, definitely worth a read for anyone in a long-term sexual relationship.

Another Emily Nagoski book, another book that I want to send to every single person I know.

Come Together picks up where Come As You Are picks up. While Come As You Are focuses on the individual and sex and pleasure, Come Together looks at intimacy in long-term relationships in a way that is inclusive and clear-eyed about the challenges facing relationships in a patriarchal, white-supremacist, capitalist society. The research she outlines is helpful and comforting, and the exercises feel realistic. I can't wait to purchase this in hard copy and share with my partner to work through together.

This is basically an instructional manual on how to maintain sexual chemistry and other types of intimacy in long term relationships. I think that it was an interesting take and liked that there were lots of specific examples/suggestions.

I am pretty sure I requested an ARC of this book the *day* it came out and then I put off reading it for ages. I kept thinking, "I can't handle non-fiction right now with everything that is going on in the world." Of course, I failed to take into account that this is our most spectacular goddess Emily and she makes every single thing she writes feel like a conversation with your most fun and brilliant bestie. So when I finally took a deep breath and committed myself to reading the introduction, I of course proceeded to inhale the entire book and finish it in a day.

And then I made my husband read it.

And similar to Burnout and Come As You Are, which I scream from the rooftop, and my parenting groups, and my smut/romance facebook groups, and to basically anyone who will listen, EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS BOOK. I don't care if you are single or coupled, Ace, Monogamous, Poly, Straight, Queer AF, Single, Whatever, you need this book.

You will learn about your own relationship to your sexuality as well a blueprint for describing the path to intimacy and arousal. You will find your desire (or lack of) and path to pleasure affirmed at every single point in the most inclusive, safe, and loving way and you will learn the difference between those two things. You will come away with explicit techniques for communicating your needs and you will know what those are. You may understand gender dynamics in a heteronormative partnerships but this book will make you think about it with even more insight into your life, even outside of your sexuality. Finally, be prepared to get deep with the final chapter because it goes allll the way into Audre Lorde's use of the Erotic, which can be hard for a lot of folks to intellectualize--just stay open to it because I promise it's worth it.

There is a section on confidence and joy that I wish I could quote verbatim but I can't because this is currently an unpublished ARC. It was one of the most beautiful and spot on things I've ever read. I think I can quote that she states that "Confidence is knowing what is true and joy is loving what is true" and goes on to break down how this is a radical act within our society, especially when it comes to desire, pleasure, and body image. Honestly, y'all, I wasn't sure if I was screaming or crying or just wanted to go hit everyone over the head with this section but this is truly my life's work.

Emily, you are a gift to this world and you are one of my imaginary besties. I will read every book you ever write and recommend it to everyone I know. If I could give this book 10 stars, I would.

Thank you a thousand times to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for this ARC (And Kathleen Quinlan for the pre-approval and invitation to review). This review is hardly unbiased, I'm obsessed with Emily Nagoski, but all opinions are very much my own.

Thank you NetGalley and publish for this electronic ARC. This book fell a little flat for me but still provided easy to follow steps. At times, I found it too dumbed down if that is a thing. Anywho, many people will find this helpful!