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
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
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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