THIGHS WIDE SHUT

Two college friends reunite after five years and attempt to become lovers.

Emma Rogers quit her Florida teaching job for a fresh start working at her best friend’s coffee shop in Boston, the city where she went to college. To her dismay, her new apartment turns out to be right below an old friend’s, the man whose heart she broke in college when she pretended she wasn’t in love with him. Harrison Carter is equally taken aback and displeased to see her—at first. Now a nurse, Harrison is also a caretaker for a guinea pig, a considerate son to a clingy mother, and still the same man Emma has missed for five years. Her avoidant tendencies are still strong, however, stemming from a painful gynecological condition that has kept her in sexual limbo. When Harrison splits up with his current girlfriend, and he and Emma start to rebuild their old connection, Emma decides to return to physical therapy and counseling so they can become lovers. But she conceals the truth about her condition for too long, leading to a predictable reveal during a charged argument, after which Harrison accuses her of assuming he’s a shallow man who can’t be trusted to support her. The upfront discussion of vaginismus and the broader understanding of sexual activity outside the standard “tab A into slot B” feels long overdue in the romance genre. Fleming also includes textual innovations such as footnotes—in which Emma documents the meaning of Harrison’s facial expressions—and the use of text messages to narrate the story of the couple’s past. Despite these additions, the plot feels insubstantial and there is little sparkle between the protagonists, whose defining traits appear to be adolescent agonizing.

A second-chance romance that teeters on the edge of interesting.