Adult Braces: Driving Myself Sane by Lindy West

I don't often choose to pick up nonfiction, but I used to read Lindy's work when she wrote for the website Jezebel, and the release of this book came with a bit of drama that had the internet buzzing for a bit. The upside of that drama is that it made me want to read it myself and form my own opinions, but the downside is that I definitely started reading it with an opinion already half-formed, so let's dig into it!

Adult Braces recounts Lindy's solo road trip across the continental United States in 2021, from her home in Seattle, WA to Key West, FL, and back again. It's a trip outside of her comfort zone, coming in the midst of a deep depression and the realization that when her husband, Aham, told her that they were polyamorous and that they intended to remain so after marrying her, they really meant it. And that's where the source of the drama came from - as Lindy did publicity for the release of Adult Braces, and people started to read the book, folks began to wonder if Lindy had been pressured into a polyamorous relationship (she, Aham, and their third partner, Roya, had come out as a throuple a few years ago), or if this was something she actually wanted.

After reading the book myself, I have to say that I'm unsure. My take on memoirs is that they are, on some level, a conversation between the author and the reader. The author is attempting to not only memorialize something about their life, but to also invite the reader into that life, and asking them to consider how they would react. Lindy also makes that point midway through Adult Braces, when she reveals that Aham was dating not just Roya, but another woman who violated the few guidelines Lindy had put in place when she and Aham had discussed his polyamory:

I could write this book in a way that would make you hate Aham's guts and pity me for staying with him. Or I could write it in a way that makes him sound tortured yet wise and makes me sound like a codependent freak. It's all true. All nonfiction is actually fiction.

Much of Adult Braces is stressful to read, if only because we're in Lindy's head with her. The bits she includes about Aham do make you hate his guts, even if that wasn't her intention, but she also takes her typical self-deprecating humor so far that she manages to come off like a codependent freak. Many of the chapters that don't directly recount her road trip instead focus on her mental health, as she goes through therapy, struggles with her self-esteem, and more. Peppered throughout are moments where Aham pops up, and what she chooses to share, doesn't shine that great of a light on him. From this, it's easy to understand why readers/commentators/social media posters would feel like Lindy was pressured into polyamory, and that Aham would only be into polyamory for all of the wrong reasons. Still, it's also funny in places, which provides some balance against Lindy's overwhelming poor sense of self.

If you're looking for a travelogue, then this isn't the book for you. While Adult Braces is structured around Lindy's road trip, the focus really isn't on the places she visits, though she does recount stories about people she meets along the way, hikes she takes, and so forth. Most of her trip is pretty formulaic - she camps in her ridiculously painted rental camper van or spends the night with friends or family, as she travels southeast to Key West. She doesn't have some huge revelation as she makes her way across the country and back, other than that with distance, she finds that she can think about opening her relationship with Aham to include Roya without feeling an all-consuming panic like she did while she was at home. As she travels alone, she begins to realize that because of her mental health, she was suffocating in a box of her own making, too afraid to try something new, and that fear includes being willing or not willing to a take risk in her relationship to make her partner happy:

Maybe the lesson isn't that I finally learned whether or not I wanted Aham, or Roya, or polyamory, or monogamy, it's that, for once, I ran toward the thing that scared me the most and leapt into an unknown that caught me and made me feel alive again, taught me to trust my instincts again, showed me that what I desire is to feel desire, to feel unafraid, to feel more everything, to be hungry. Maybe that's its own accomplishment, worth celebrating, or at least worth granting some space to breathe, and maybe it's all I can do to take one step at a time deeper and deeper into life.

Now onto what's really important, which is my opinion about the central theme of this memoir: Lindy's attempt to explain why she was finally willing to accept polyamory. My experience is very limited when it comes to romantic relationships, and I don't think I could ever be in an open relationship, but like a lot of other folks on the internet, I feel like there are a lot of red flags here that Lindy is willing to ignore in order to stay with Aham. It doesn't help that by focusing on her internal struggles and avoiding a full recounting of their relationship (admittedly, something we are not owed as readers, but also something that undermines the whole point of committing this to paper), we are left with what little crumbs she gives us, and those crumbs are moldy. There's a point in the story where she shares that she and Aham developed a routine where they would lay in bed together after waking up in the morning and only talk about good things. It's a cute idea, until Lindy explains that this was a routine they only started doing because she would wake up, begin worrying about a bill or task that needed to be done, share that with Aham, and that would cause him to panic, get upset, and then act distant towards her the rest of the day. I thought of that anecdote as I got to the end of the book, when Lindy shares that Roya is so good at taking care of mundane tasks, like paying bills the moment they arrive, or labeling leftovers in the fridge. I couldn't help but to wonder: were they actually building a more stable relationship by adding a third partner that they both share, or did Lindy just get an unpaid personal assistant that Aham has permission to bang with her knowledge (and sometimes her participation)? Perhaps I'm being too reductive by focusing on that.

In conclusion, Adult Braces is at times infuriating and humorous. I'm not sure if I could recommend it as a general recommendation, but if you also caught wind of the drama and are curious to read it and form your own opinions, please do.

P.S. I should note that the next book I read after this one was a monster romance where a wolfman couldn't stop wagging his tail any time he was around the curvy baker, and to be honest, that's the kind of love that we all deserve.