Exposed: A Novel (edició 2010)

Free on kindle. Spoilers. This is pretty much cr*p. The story is told in 2 voices. 1 is a christian marriage counselor who doesn't seem to have much faith and who finds out her husband consumes pornography. Somehow he managed to hide what seems to be a real addiction from her for a number of years. She spends a lot of time thinking about why she isn't good enough for him. Her friend tells her that in the friend's marriage they use porn together; the friend doesn't like it but feels it is necessary to please her husband. A councillee in a similar situation tells her it is about the man, not about the woman, but this doesn't help. So, this main character and her husband try to save the marriage, with the husband trying to stay away & failing but still trying, and doing romantic things in the interim to try to win her back. There is lots of side stories, including really strange family relationships. The husband's father openly belittles the wife by saying she isn't pretty enough.

Then it turns out that heroine #1's mother lied about her father using porn & cheating; it was the mother who cheated & the father was loyal and true. Our heroine has been cut off from her father and now finds him again. This helps bring peace.

Then (this is an interminable review of a too-long book) there is voice #2, a young girl, just turned 18, who stumbles on a want ad & becomes a porn star with an abusive man who is starting in the business with her. Somehow she is great. But he dehumanizes her and forces her to cosmetic surgery and is horrible. But she creates a new identify for herself that puts up with it & she loves him. And on it goes.

Finally they are both pregnant, and they end up at the same ob/gyn; the one is working on her marriage; the other is living on the streets and being a prostitute because she got dumped by the porn guy and doesn't want to do it any more anyway.

And so the babies are born, or not, the good woman loses her baby at full-term, the bad woman has a lovely baby and dies...and at the end the good woman has the bad woman's baby, and her own, and her lovely husband.

The end. I think that the psychological/personal question of dealing with porn, of having a husband/lover who consumes porn, are interesting questions and this book sometimes touched on them, but the author isn't enough of a creative artist to make it come alive.

This is an awesome story with a powerful message. It covers some difficult subject matter but does so in a way that makes sense and is believable. Some parts of this story touched me so deeply I cried. Well done! ( )