I love literary novels about messy marriages, and from the description it seemed right up alley. This did not work for me at all unfortunately, however I fully admit I am not the target audience. The Freedom Clause is bucketed as "Literary Fiction", which it certainly is not. This is mass market/commercial fiction, similar to Colleen Hoover and Lucy Score.

I quickly realized the genre mistake but decided to let my expectations go and just enjoy the story. The first 30% or so was promising as we saw Daphne and Dominic fall in love in college, get married, and ultimately decide to open their marriage for one night a year. Once the story moved into the happenings of the titular "Freedom Clause", it quickly fell off. Let me explain:

Stylistically I found it tedious - there are section breaks constantly (like, sometimes every other paragraph) to denote when we were in Daphne or Dominics head. Sometimes we would switch mid-scene, and other times we would jump months ahead. It was jarring, I never quite understood how time was progressing, and there is no tone shift or style difference between Daphne and Dominic's POVs, so I would have to go back and re-read the opening sentences of a section once I realized who's head I was in.

I couldn't connect to either character. They are both insufferable and child-like, yet oddly self-aware (example, Dominic literally though to himself at one point "I'm too selfish to put Daphne first, it's no wonder our marriage is failing!"). The constant telling rather than showing not only pulled me out of the story but rendered the characters completely unbelievable, and left me uninvested.

And finally, the plot: if I were to lay out the plot points (which I wont, no spoilers) this would sound like an entertaining read. Unfortunately, we didn't linger long enough in any one scene or feel the ramifications of any betrayals, embarrassments, wins or heartbreaks - it was rushed through and glossed over. A scene would end as soon as the action did, without reflection or interiority, and was not revisited later on. By the end it, when some seriously scandalous things happen and we fade to black before the characters react, I was fed up. I had no patience left for the characters jumping to insane conclusions, or the crazy miscommunications that lead to even crazier plot points - the story had already lost credibility, and I couldn't suspend my disbelief any further.

I would say "this works as a mindless, fun read" but there's so much half-baked feminism throughout that it doesn't qualify as an escapist beach read. The feminist topics Daphne engages with are worthwhile: sexism in the workplace, how women are disadvantaged by being raised to people please, the outsized burden of domestic and emotional labor that women bear; however, the exploration is heavy-handed (and often spurred on by comically sexist men) and lacks the proper gravitas these topics deserved. Of all my gripes with The Freedom Clause, my biggest was its unintentional trivialization of feminism.