Ten Men by Kitty Ruskin: 

This book is the summary of the author’s lost year of 2019; when after a sexual assault during childhood, she decides to get in touch with her sexuality.  A chapter is devoted to each man and what happened, from first date to break up.  The writing is sharp and there is a refreshing frankness about sex.  There’s also a real discussion about consent - during the course of the year, she is raped twice and as a result, her mental health suffers and she considers suicide.  For that reason, the book quite rightly carries a trigger warning.  

Where the book falls down is the writing seems loose, disconnected.  It works best, like any book in a confessional genre where the writing and, by extension the writer is being true to themselves. The structure itself, seems too limiting (a man, anonymised per chapter). Plus, there is little attempt to contextualise it until the afterword and the writing in that chapter, seems to have a weight and an insight that the loose, choppy style of the majority of the book has.  It’s out now from Icon and I thank them for a preview copy.  #tenmen