Available

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper 360 for this ARC of Available
A Very Honest Account of Life After Divorce
by Laura Friedman Williams.

I absolutely loved this book, and could not put it down.
Laura is open and puts it all out there for us to experience what post-divorce life could be for women who have the courage to pursue it.

Laura seeks to explore her sexuality after twenty years of tepid relations with her former husband, mired in the domestic identities of mother and wife as she had been. It seems Laura and he were not very well paired to begin with.
Their disparate intimacy and sexuality seemed a bad fit.

Throughout numerous experiences with men, she examines with wonder her present love of personal and sexual freedom coming after two decades of familial safety and security.

There is descriptive sex in this book but it is not gratuitous. It is an honest telling of the good and bad realities of sex with (many) serial strangers after rediscovering oneself in middle age. I at points cringed with horrified sympathy and yearned with vicarious longing or nostalgia at her dating experiences with new men. Laura well navigated the confusing landscape that is personal/intimate relations with middle-aged strangers.

Laura has causal relationships with men she meets organically, online, and via set-ups from friends. She does not name them but assigns them numbers, which I found humorous if sometimes confusing as to which number was who.

The narrative also contains elements of the stages of the breakdown and final ending of her marriage and all of the family drama that entails. This did not interest me as much as her dating accounts but I understand that it is necessary as part of her evolution.

I admired Laura for her wit, her candor, and most of all for showing women what post-divorce life can be if they dare to consider themselves and their desires, and to re-locate their lost womanhood for their own sake, and not for any man.

Five stars.

Laura finds out her husband is having an affair. She leaves him less than 48 hours later.

What comes next, though is where Available really begins.

Laura has almost no sexual experience outside of her relationship with her soon-to-be ex-husband, as they have been together since they were both very young. Finding herself suddenly single in her late 40's, Laura has a sexual awakening. After having her first one-night stand, she dives headfirst into her own personal liberation tour.

Vouge was right when they described this memoir as "gripping." I couldn't put this one down. Laura is incredibly raw, and yet so polished, in her writing. She's not afraid to be candid but is also extremely reflective and self-aware. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a juicy read to escape into, it's the perfect sort of book to bring with you on vacation or read snuggled up by the fire on a Sunday night.

Available is currently available (lol) for pre-order and will be released on May 3. Thank you to @netgalley for an advanced copy of the book!

What a debut by Laura Friedman-Williams, as I was reading this book it felt like I was reading a friends journal and wanted to just keep going. This book is definitely R rated but reading the book description I knew that, none of the language felt gratuitous.

Amazon synopsis
When her 22-year-marriage suddenly ended, 47-year-old mother of three Laura expected life as she knew it to be over. What she hadn’t expected:
· An incredible one-night stand
· A new-found sexual appetite
· Ten men in eight months
· That there is plenty of fun to be had after 40
From G-spots to bald spots, dirty talk to dating fiascos, Available is the unflinchingly honest, empowering, and humorous true story of one woman’s love life after divorce.

Williams has written a candid appraisal,of her life after her separation from her husband. She focuses on her dating life, diving head first into the deep end of hook ups. I give her credit for exploring new avenues and not being afraid to live for herself.
She had the temerity to take risks and see what all what out there.
It’s an interesting read on dating and sex after divorce.