Very well done. Thoroughly enjoyed! ( )

Middle-age

This was definitely an interesting read. A different view of an "open marriage". To get right into it, Lucy and Owen really did have a good, maybe even solid or happy, marriage. Until they wondered if something was missing. When they decided to explore the life of a no strings open marriage for six months, all does not go according to plan. Owen ends up attached to a woman, Izzy, who's borderline psychotic and who's behavior makes him realize how good of a thing he had/has with his wife, Lucy.
Lucy, on the other hand, ends up falling head over heels for her guy, Ben. A man that listens and longs to spend time with her. In him she receives what she never noticed was lacking in her marriage. All the while, the suddenly simply married couple (no longer happily) are coping with raising their young son with a sensory disorder and struggling to fit all the pieces of their life together as they slowly begin to fall apart. In the end, a six month trial of an open marriage is the deciding factor for Lucy and Owen to make or break their marriage. Sometimes you really shouldn't jump off the bridge just because your friends did it. Now that makes sense!

I have to admit that I was disappointed with the wrap up. Given the flow of the story, I was expecting more involvement from Lucy and Owen in the close of the book. So that was a little bit of a let down. In the end, it was still a good book to read. Thumbs up! ( )

This book was fairly predictable. I think it would be good for a book club. The character development could be a bit better. It's interesting to see how Lucy acts. ( )

Beach Read

Hand it to Sarah Dunn. She knows how to grab your attention and hold it, whether you are on a beach or flying to one. The Arrangement deals in fantasy, the fantasy some couples may have after five, ten years of marriage, and kids, and responsibilities. What would it be like to shuck all that, to feel like a newly minted twenty-something, to be truly and passionately (as in sexually passionate) in love? Here’s one version, courtesy of Dunn, albeit laced with a strong cautionary. People, it seems, have other emotions in addition to love and these can be ugly and rear their heads to make the whole affair rather unpleasant.

Owen and Lucy have been married a while. They have traded their life in Brooklyn for the bucolic, and more affordable, life in Beekman, NY (ah, yes, know it well; went to Sylvan Lake, next door to Beekman, to swim as a boy). They try hard to have a child, eventually go the IVF route. Wyatt, their son, appears to be autistic and quite a handful. You can appreciate how the couple might like to have a break from the daily, trying routine. At a patio dinner with friends from the city, they learn about a married couple, gay men with children, who are experimenting with a six-month arrangement, complete with rules, allowing each to seek sex elsewhere.

It isn’t long before Owen and Lucy decide to give it a try. Owen hooks up first and quickly with Izzy, who turns possessive and hounding. Lucy’s friend Sally Bang, the only really interesting name in the book, puts Lucy in touch with a divorced acquaintance, Ben. He turns out to be something of an emotional dream. Owen is harassed; Lucy is in love. (Male readers may ask why Owen gets the nut and Lucy the bliss? Duh, how dense you are, sir.) You’ll never guess? You guessed, the landing is hard for both and their marriage.

Dunn tosses in a couple of other stories that only tangentially link to the main plot. There’s the kindergarten teacher, Mr. Lowell, who decides to transform into Mrs. Lowell. Consequences follow, but many readers will wonder where the heck do you even find a male kindergarten teacher? The other concerns billionaire Gordon Allen and his wife, his fourth, a former cocktail waitress, whom he married spontaneously, so quick that he plumb forgot to have her sign a prenup. Talk about fantasy! Perhaps there are lessons in these tangents? The Lowell’s marriage appears to not just survive the change but flourish, whereas Gordon’s does what you’d expect, except for something of a novel reason.

Not to be too hard on the novel, because Dunn never intended it to be deathless prose, it’s perfect for the summer. It moves as quick as a summer thunderstorm. It often is hilarious, at least in the first half. And for those with thoughts of straying, of testing if the grass is indeed greener on the other side, of harboring any ideas of a similar arrangement, it is a kernel of reality. ( )