There is no writer out there who does self reflection like Melissa Febos. Her writing style is absolutely incredible as is her attention to detail. I love how she brings in other pieces of literature and spirituality in her writing to support her own experiences. This work is by far one of her best and makes you really self reflect while experiencing her story.

Wow, I loved this book. As someone with addiction issues, avoidant attachment, and generally confused about life I really connected with this book. I think anyone who is going through change to be a better person in relationships and be a better person to yourself, this one is for you.

Finishing this book left me with a mix of emotions. I ended up reading it in just three days—an outcome of my own impatience, but it was impossible to stop once I started. I was captivated by how Melissa thoughtfully examines her inner world and life journey.

It’s bittersweet that the experience of reading this gorgeous, thoughtful book is over. My own fault for tearing through it in just three days, but I couldn’t help myself — I love the way Melissa explores the contours of her own psyche and life experience.

And I’m not surprised. I’ve loved each of Melissa’s books before, and was so enormously excited to receive an ARC for this one; one I’m excited to read all over again when it’s released in June.

In <i>The Dry Season</i>, as in her previous books, Melissa is so honest, often funny, so curious and considered in her approach to the wisdom that’s come from women before and the wisdom she has gleaned from her own life.

Like Melissa at the start of this book, I’ve been consistently romantically partnered since high school, and often wondered — even as I’m now in a partnership I love — if I would benefit from time alone.

“I was reassured by the fact that I never felt afraid to be alone,” Melissa writes. “I did not consider how one might not ever feel the thing she had successfully outrun.”

Oof.

That was one of many lines I loved that I copied down in my notebook — lines that turned into paragraphs that turned into page after page of Melissa’s words I wanted to remember.

<i>The Dry Season</i> is a book about Melissa’s year of celibacy, yes, but it’s also about the internal narratives we carry into relationships and the relationships we forge (or don’t) with ourselves and our own connection to spirituality; about how having a deeper connection to these inner relationships can allow us to be in relationship with another without needing to be validated or "made whole" by their existence. I can’t think of a single person who wouldn’t benefit from, at the very least, witnessing Melissa’s exploration into the depths of those narratives and relationships from her past.

Much like when I read Leslie Jamison’s <i>Splinters</i> last year (or <i>The Recovering</i> back in 2018), when I read this book, I was struck not just by how much I related to Melissa’s personal experience, but also by how much I desired to interrogate and excavate my own experience like her as a writer.

What a gift to get to read from her again.

I requested this because of my interest in female mystics and Hildegard in particular and that was most certainly the most interesting and best part of this memoir. I've never read anything by this author before and while there are quotes and sections that resonated, overall I found it a bit verbose.

Febos combines personal narrative writing with well-researched historical and literary analysis. The book is a cold splash of water to the face any other serial monogamist that come across it. It should go without saying if you enjoyed any of Febos other work, especially Girlhood, then you will love this book as well.

Melissa Febos gives us quite a bit to chew on in her memoir about a year of celibacy--Dry Season. The courage and honesty it took to write this book is quite admirable. Her life, her relationships and her failures are all out in the open. Febos decides to abstain from sex basically because she is an addict and she sees that this is one more of her addictions. But it is more complex. She says: "It was easy to frame my relationship to romance within the paradigm of addiction, but I knew it was more complicated...[there was] an underlying relationship to power, escape, and that bottomless need my old therapist had been so sure I possessed." Then she inventories her relationship as well as her forays into other women's lives who have chosen celibacy or who have struggled with their sexuality. She becomes more centered on herself and begins to feel more wholeness within herself and not dependent on someone else's attentions. And the ancestors helped her.
"My attempt to replace dependence with independence and interdependence, to share my questions and answers with the women who came before and after me, was the radical basis of all feminisms. It was the basis of all freedoms. It was my inheritance."
The book is not only an inventory, however. Her mix of travels to ancestors' homes and a rich feminist and lesbian history makes the book an interesting read. She discusses many famous figures--Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Robert Gluck, Margery Kempe, Hildegard of Bingen, and a group of 13th century lay religious nuns called Beguines who promised not to marry and advocated celibacy. She also includes experiences of friends and acquaintances. It is a fascinating journey.
Melissa Febos is a writer and writing professor who was a heroin addict and a dominatrix. She is the author of four memoir/essay books and has won many awards. I read her recent book Body Work which was thought-provoking and very much aimed at writers. She identifies as queer and is now in a relationship with the poet Donika Kelly.

An odd book that was sometimes puzzling and sometimes thought provoking

(I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)