All Fours by Miranda July
⭐ Book Review: All Fours by Miranda July
👉 Grab your copy of All Fours on Amazon
🚨 Trigger Warnings
Before you dive into this wild ride, note that All Fours contains:
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🌶️ Explicit sexual content (including masturbation & affairs)
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💔 Infidelity
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🩸 Perimenopause & aging body themes
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🏥 Childbirth trauma (mentioned in backstory)
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🌪️ Emotional turmoil / midlife crisis
If any of these are tough topics for you, tread carefully.
✨ My (Totally Biased) Thoughts
So… how do I even explain this book?! 🤯
Miranda July’s All Fours is one of the most out there books I’ve ever read. And I LOVED it. 💖 Do I know why I loved it? Nope. Not really. But sometimes magic can’t be explained — it just has to be experienced. This isn’t a story where the “plot” is the magic. The magic is in the way July tells it: quirky, raw, funny, uncomfortable, and strangely beautiful.
As a woman squarely in the perimenopausal trenches myself, this book hit close to home. It talks about aging, desire, and identity in a way I don’t see often in fiction. Yes, there’s a lot of sex (and, um, solo sex 🙃), which usually makes me squirm, but July somehow makes it feel different — funny, human, even oddly touching. There were moments I laughed out loud and moments where I winced.
The main character doesn’t act logically half the time — but honestly? That’s the point. She’s in a midlife crisis. Who’s logical then?!
Final verdict: 4.5⭐. I knocked off half a star only because this is definitely a love/hate relationship for me. But mostly love. (And a little bit of “what the heck did I just read?” 😅)
📖 Full Spoiler-Filled Summary (You’ve Been Warned 🚨)
The setup:
Our narrator is a 45-year-old artist living in LA with her husband, Harris, and their kid, Sam. Their life is… fine. Maybe too fine. Think tidy house, once-a-week sex, and separate bedrooms. She’s creatively stuck, restless, and not feeling fully alive.
Then comes the spark: she unexpectedly gets $20,000 from licensing a line she once wrote. Instead of adding it to savings like a responsible adult, she decides it’s time for a cross-country road trip to New York. Adventure! Freedom! 🚗💨
Except… 30 minutes in, she stops for gas in Monrovia, locks eyes with a young man named Davey Boutrous, and suddenly forgets all about New York. She rents a motel room (Room 321 at the Excelsior Motel) and basically… moves in.
The affair-that-isn’t:
She and Davey circle each other. They don’t technically sleep together — he insists on “protecting his marriage” — but they spend nights talking, holding each other, even dancing. She falls in love. He says goodbye. Ouch. 💔
Back home:
She goes back to her family, but she’s restless. She’s also entering perimenopause and feeling that mix of loss and urgency. Determined not to let desire die, she throws herself into workouts and even choreographs a sexy dance video for Davey. But when she tries to reconnect, she learns he and his wife have moved away.
Detour → unexpected fling:
Instead, she bonds with Audra (Davey’s ex-lover) and ends up sleeping with her. Surprise! She realizes her desire isn’t just tied to Davey, but to a bigger awakening in herself.
Shifting marriage:
Back with Harris, she eventually confesses what happened. Instead of a meltdown, he’s… oddly receptive. They decide to open their marriage. Harris starts dating Paige. She dates Kris, a woman who makes her feel seen and alive. But when Kris breaks up with her, she spirals.
Healing & art:
Later, she meets a pop star, Arkanda, who also suffered childbirth trauma. They share deeply vulnerable moments, and this somehow reignites her creativity. She starts writing again. ✍️
The ending:
Years pass. Her new book is published, and she flies to New York for a tour. On a whim, she texts Davey — and guess what? He’s there too, performing as a dancer. She goes to see him, surrounded by his fans, realizing he belongs to the world, not just to her.
But instead of devastation, she feels transformed, grateful, and alive. The book closes on this sense of renewal — a woman finally coming into her own, even if in the most bizarre, Miranda July way possible.
🔎 Themes & Takeaways
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Midlife + Perimenopause: messy, funny, painful, liberating
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Sexual freedom: not just about sex, but identity and possibility
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Art & creativity: how personal chaos can fuel self-discovery
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Open relationships: explored without judgment, just as part of the journey
📚 If You Liked All Fours, Try…
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Milk Fed by Melissa Broder (raw, funny, sexual self-discovery)
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Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill (fragmented but powerful midlife marriage story)
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How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti (quirky, meta, artsy vibe)
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Crudo by Olivia Laing (messy, contemporary, razor-sharp writing)
💡 Final Word: All Fours is not for everyone. It’s weird. It’s uncomfortable. It’s messy. But if you vibe with Miranda July’s offbeat style, it’s absolutely unforgettable.
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