Tedious and imperceptive.
A filmmaker attempts to understand why so many marriages fail by interviewing survivors of divorce.
It's ironic that the author of this unoriginal book claims to have been spurred to write it by a hatred of self-help books and their attendant clichés. Former Spin senior editor Shapiro (The Every Boy, 2007), acclaimed director of Murderball and Monogamy, serves up cliché after cliché of his own, punctuated only occasionally by his shallow summaries of the lessons he's learned from his research. Perhaps the author really is motivated by a desire to understand why all of his long-term romantic relationships broke up before reaching the level of marriage. However, in most of his interviews, he focuses less on gleaning fresh insights about intimacy, communication and the nature of marriage than he does on hooking readers with tawdry, often-irrelevant details about his subjects’ sex lives. What lesson should we draw from the story of Shapiro’s friend who paid a woman to clean his apartment in the nude? “It's not that I want to be the type of guy who places sex ads on Craigslist,” he writes, “I just want to make sure that I'm never the type of husband whose wife would want to answer one.” Fair enough, but couldn't he have made this claim without subjecting us to completely unnecessary details of his friend's sexual encounter? After years of research, Shapiro's primary belief seems to be that the key to a happy marriage is having a partner who is willing to perform a couple of highly specific sex acts. Few would argue against the importance of a mutually rewarding erotic relationship, but, given the specificity of Shapiro's claims and the leading nature of his interview questions, it would be wise to take his lessons with an enormous grain of salt.
Tedious and imperceptive.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-5777-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A highly readable account of how solid research and personal testing of self-help techniques saved a couple's marriage after...
Self-help advice and personal reflections on avoiding spousal fights while raising children.
Before her daughter was born, bestselling author Dunn (Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo?: And Other Questions I Wish I Never Had to Ask, 2009, etc.) enjoyed steady work and a happy marriage. However, once she became a mother, there never seemed to be enough time, sleep, and especially help from her husband. Little irritations became monumental obstacles between them, which led to major battles. Consequently, they turned to expensive couples' therapy to help them regain some peace in life. In a combination of memoir and advice that can be found in most couples' therapy self-help books, Dunn provides an inside look at her own vexing issues and the solutions she and her husband used to prevent them from appearing in divorce court. They struggled with age-old battles fought between men and women—e.g., frequency of sex, who does more housework, who should get up with the child in the middle of the night, why women need to have a clean house, why men need more alone time, and many more. What Dunn learned via therapy, talks with other parents, and research was that there is no perfect solution to the many dynamics that surface once couples become parents. But by using time-tested techniques, she and her husband learned to listen, show empathy, and adjust so that their former status as a happy couple could safely and peacefully morph into a happy family. Readers familiar with Dunn's honest and humorous writing will appreciate the behind-the-scenes look at her own semi-messy family life, and those who need guidance through the rough spots can glean advice while being entertained—all without spending lots of money on couples’ therapy.
A highly readable account of how solid research and personal testing of self-help techniques saved a couple's marriage after the birth of their child.Pub Date: March 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-26710-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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