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"When I&amp;#039;m not writing about sex, or actually having sex, I&amp;#039;m reading. It&amp;#039;s kind of like sweet lovemaking for my mind: Gentle, soothing and always relaxing. My latest find, Falling Under by Danielle Younge-Ullman, was no exception. The only difference was instead of languid foreplay, this debut was hard hitting and explosive, with a raw energy that left me breathless. Revolving around Mara, an artist struggling to find love life against the back drop of her parents&amp;#039; angry divorce, Ullman&amp;#039;s character study was ruthless in painting the collateral damage of divorce on kids. The author succeeded in not only showing how Mara picked the wrong guys to fill her aching soul, but how she also managed to work through her insecurities in an attempt to find the right one. Who hasn&amp;#039;t gone through hell searching for their soul mate, only to discover that a man alone cannot do that \u2013 we must? I understood Mara&amp;#039;s panic: &amp;quot;Hugo and I, we could be happy...But happiness is dangerous, is treacherous, and one day I would lose him. I would pull out my soul and serve it to him and he would be gone...&amp;quot; It would be easy for Mara to walk away from Hugo and stay with the equally broken Erik. Sex with him is carnal. There&amp;#039;s no second guessing. &amp;quot;I say it and he does it.... until I can&amp;#039;t see, can&amp;#039;t think. There is no room in my head for voices, no room in my heart for pain. I am reduced to the elemental.... His body pummels mine, punishes, drives out all fight, all sense of self. And finally he gives me what I need: he gives me silence, he gives me nothingness. He obliterates me.&amp;quot; Sexual obliteration is a slippery slope, for on one hand, who doesn&amp;#039;t want to be loved so forcefully they forget about that bitchy woman in the carpool line, the bills or, God forbid, the person who abused you at seven? But the issue is never the obliteration, but who it is that&amp;#039;s doing the obliterating. If it&amp;#039;s the right man, he can catch you when you fall. The wrong one might just make you more insecure than before he destroyed you.  Oh, and there&amp;#039;s the little factor of personal accountability. How much can you blame on the gunman for shooting, and how much can you blame on yourself for not ducking?  Falling Under is a fascinating journey into the mind of a real woman in search for the right man. Ullman&amp;#039;s book is one, like a good friend, that tells you like it is but leaves you feeling good when the conversation is over. More information on Ullman can be found at her website here or at The Debutante Ball.   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/relationships/a20613/bad-boy-sex-why-does-wrong-f/>