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More Than Two
AuthorFranklin Veaux,
Eve Rickert
Cover artistPaul Mendoza, Thorntree Press
CountryUSA
LanguageEnglish
Subject Polyamory, open relationships, human sexuality
Published
  • 1st ed. 2014 (Thorntree Press)
  • 2nd ed. 2024 (Thornapple Press)
Media typePrint (hardback, paperback, & audiobook)
Pages496
ISBN 978-0-9913997-0-3

More Than Two is a non-fiction book about consensual non-monogamous relationships. The first edition, More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory, written by Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert, was published in 2014 by Thorntree Press, a publishing company founded by the authors. It included a foreword by Janet Hardy, co-author of The Ethical Slut. A new foreword by Jessica Fern, author of Polysecure, was added to the eighth printing in 2022. [1] In February 2024, Rickert announced that she had acquired the rights to the book and that a new edition, More Than Two: Cultivating Nonmonogamous Relationships with Kindness and Integrity, written with co-author Andrea Zanin, would be published that September of that year by her publishing company, Thornapple Press. [2]

The book shares the same name as, but no content with, [3] Veaux's website MoreThanTwo.com, which he launched in 1997 under the name Xeromag as a resource about polyamory, [4] and with Rickert's website MoreThanTwo.ca. "More Than Two" is also the name of a series of books on consensual nonmonogamy curated by Rickert and published by Thornapple Press. [5] Thornapple Press holds trademarks in the name. [6] In January 2023, the Relationship Bill of Rights from More Than Two was released into the public domain. [7]

Reception

The first edition of More Than Two received positive reviews within polyamorous communities upon publication. [8] [9] [10] The book was a finalist in the Family & Relationships category for the 2014 Indiefab Awards (later rebranded as the Foreword INDIES). [11] [12]

Criticism of First Edition

In 2019, a group of people including seven of Veaux's former partners, including More Than Two co-author Rickert and three of the women whom Veaux had told personal stories about in More Than Two and in Veaux's memoir, The Game Changer, went public describing abusive and harmful behaviors from Veaux over the course of their relationships with him. [13] The accusations led to a critical analysis of both books by author Kali Tal, [14] who has published extensively regarding psychological trauma. [15]

Rickert published a re-analysis of parts of More Than Two on her own blog, explaining how she had come to understand how some ideas within the book had developed from dysfunctional aspects of her relationship with Veaux. [16] [17] In the second of these analyses, she referenced another essay about an abusive polyamorous relationship that described how some unspecified, popular polyamory guides had been used to support abuse. [18]

References

  1. ^ "More Than Two". Thornapple Press.
  2. ^ "The book More Than Two turns ten—and gets a second edition". Eve Rickert.
  3. ^ "Franklin and…err…some chick". Franklin Veaux. Archived from the original on September 7, 2015.{{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown ( link)
  4. ^ "About – More Than Two". Franklin Veaux.
  5. ^ "More Than Two Canada". Eve Rickert.
  6. ^ "More Than Two – Brighter Than Sunflowers". Eve Rickert.
  7. ^ "Relationship Bill of Rights – Brighter Than Sunflowers". Eve Rickert.
  8. ^ "*More Than Two* reviews, and getting it into libraries". Polyamory in the News. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
  9. ^ "More Than Two, latest news & reviews". Polyamory in the News. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
  10. ^ "More Than Two in the media: new roundup". Polyamory in the News. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
  11. ^ "2014 Foreword INDIES Finalists in Family & Relationships (Adult Nonfiction)". Foreword Reviews. Retrieved October 30, 2018.
  12. ^ "Foreword Book of the Year Submission Open". Foreword Reviews. Retrieved October 30, 2018.
  13. ^ "Abuse Happens in Polyamory, Too". The BF Mag. August 20, 2019. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
  14. ^ ""My Life Belongs to Me": Reading the Polyamory Narratives of Franklin Veaux Against the Relationship Testimony of Two of His Ex-Nesting Partners". Kali Tal. Archived from the original on August 12, 2019. Retrieved August 12, 2019.{{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown ( link)
  15. ^ "Kali Tal - Publications". Retrieved November 21, 2021.
  16. ^ "Thoughts on the Fifth Anniversary of More Than Two". Eve Rickert. September 2, 2019. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
  17. ^ "What I Got Wrong in More Than Two: The Dark Night of the Soul". Eve Rickert. November 30, 2019. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
  18. ^ "I was in a polyamorous and abusive relationship for 7 years and here's what I learned". Inês Rôlo. January 15, 2020. Retrieved November 21, 2021.