Love Beyond Monogamy was insightful and enjoyable from beginning to end! Each chapter offers fresh wisdom as Brian applies best practices and traditions from both the worlds of polyamory/non-monogamy and religion (drawing from multiple faiths) to each other and to life in general.

This book is for anyone who has ever intersected with either of these worlds and wants to learn more about the love and fulfillment their inhabitants enjoy. It’s for those who practice /both/ non-monogamy and religion and seek to deepen their experience of each. And it’s for anyone with an open mind and open heart, eager to love and relate more fully to those around them.

This is NOT a primer on polyamory or religion, nor is it a defense of either. It is sex-positive, non-judgmental, and as inclusive as can be—within the scope of one author’s perspective.

Many a pearl will be clutched, but it’s difficult to refute the connections and corollaries Brian draws between the sexual and the sacred. There’s much to gain from pausing to apply aspects of one to the other, in both directions. This theme persists throughout the book as Brian explores topics of what is sacred, love, consent, commitment, ritual, loss, hospitality, and more.

Thank you to Jessica Kingsley Publishers and NetGalley for the advance review copy I received so that I could write this review.

I really wanted to like this book. I am not sure if it was the writing style or editing but it did not hold my attention.

Even though I’m not pursuing polyamory, Love Beyond Monogamy was profoundly impactful. As someone exploring an open relationship and rediscovering spirituality after a Catholic upbringing, I found this book to be both a guide and a spiritual awakening. Brian writes with a rare vulnerability, inviting us into his life and desires with such intimacy that makes the book’s insights even more powerful. He doesn’t just tell us about queer love, he lets us feel it.

The book reframes queerness, intimacy, and desire as sacred, offering tools for honest connection while honoring the erotic as a site of transformation. It doesn’t just explore queer intimacy, it sanctifies it. It’s about the spaces and acts that mainstream culture might never understand, and how, in those spaces, we find God in each other.

One section, early on, describing the act of receiving cum as communion—stopped me in my tracks. It’s provocative, yes, but also profoundly moving, capturing the heart of the book’s message: that queer intimacy can be a ritual, a moment where flesh and spirit meet. In those lines, I felt the book’s core most strongly: how sex, stripped of shame, can transform into prayer.

I was surprised, too, by the quiet arousal that surfaced as I read through some parts of the book. Love Beyond Monogamy doesn’t shy away from eroticism; it invites us to see pleasure itself as a spiritual act, to honor the ways intimacy and desire can nourish the soul as much as the body.

This isn’t just a book about relationships. It is an invitation to see our queer lives as holy, our pleasure as sacred and meaningful, and our love as boundless. For those who are spiritually curious, navigating openness, or simply longing to see queer love and sex honored without shame, Love Beyond Monogamy is illuminating, intimate, and unforgettable. Well done.

Wonderful book on all things relating - while the book is about polyamory, it has so much about relationship anarchy without calling it that. This goes beyond only how one relates to their partner, but how they relate to everyone in their life and how relationships with people can deepen a relationship with spirituality. This book fills a gap in polyamory books as being written by a queer man and discussing polyamory related to religion. The author includes much of their own experiences throughout and how this has shaped who they are and how they relate with others in life.

Love Beyond Monogamy is an interesting and thought-provoking read. The author, raised Christian and now Jewish, offers a unique perspective on how polyamory can coexist with religious faith. As an atheist, I couldn’t personally relate to the spiritual aspects, but I appreciated how the book explores weaving polyamory into spiritual practice, bringing elements of polyamory into monogamous relationships, and vice versa. I had expected more guidance on how to approach polyamory itself, but instead found reflections that challenged me to think more deeply about my own journey.

This was very good! This is a helpful book for monogamists and non-monogamists of faith. I read this because I've listened to the Queer Theology podcast and was curious about this perspective.

This author was raised Christian and is now Jewish, and he mentions other religions but mainly talks from a Jewish perspective and spiritual practice. Most readers will probably be Christian or Jewish.

The temptation is to compare this to the existing mainstays of Ethical Slut and Polywise. This book is not that. This is not an explainer on polyamory or how to have a poly relationship, but to instead bring aspects of polyamory into spiritual practice, aspects of polyamory into monogamous relationships, and aspects of spirituality into polyamory.

My favorite bookmarks:
- Chapter 3- pointing out that when discussing God, we need to define what we mean; and that we need a diversity of voices to understand God
- Chapter 7- just like the Relationship Anarchy Smorgasbord is helpful for defining what we want in a relationship with a person, doing a DTR to define what we want our relationship with God to look like is helpful
- Chapter 12- a prayer of praise for the relationships and breakups that shaped us

Some readers will appreciate the questions and expansions that they can bring to their relationships. Some will appreciate the parts that talk about God. For me, as I'm healing from religious trauma/breaks and unsure what to do now, I most appreciated the parts that suggested a new, gentler way to approach God.

Thanks to Netgalley and Jessica Kingsley Publishers for the ARC.