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smcintyre 's review for:
Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough
by Lori Gottlieb
If ever there were a book that just needed to be a TED talk instead... Oy vey!
It's not that the overall message of this book was bad. In fact, the message was pretty good (and, conveniently for me, came at a time that I was very receptive to hearing it): choose life partners based on deep qualities that matter for a relationship (honesty, kindness, alignment of goals and values and the type of life you want to have), not based on a laundry list of things that you think would be nice to have but actually don't matter (looks, height, how they dress). Romance is actually about the day to day things you do to support a partner, not about butterflies in your stomach; "Marriage isn't a constant passion-fest; it's more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane nonprofit business" (p. 227). Oh, and it gets much harder to find a spouse as you get older, especially if you're a woman (for both cultural and demographic reasons).
The thing is that there are many other sources that deliver the same message better -- in fewer words, mostly; also with less sexism. To be fair to the author, maybe that wasn't the case when the book was published in 2010.
I frequently feel that nonfiction could be shaved down a fair bit; in this case, the book could be a third of its current length and it would be better. I learned essentially nothing in pages 100-250 that I hadn't learned in pages 1-100. Make your damn point and move on!
Plus, we do a lot of blaming women about being too picky. Perhaps (straight, monogamous) women are indeed pickier, to their detriment, than (straight, monogamous) men are... but it feels dated and unnecessarily icky to constantly center the conversation around how women, specifically, have got it all wrong.
For those reasons, I would not recommend this book to another reader, but if you want some very similar content for a fraction of the time, I would recommend, in order:
- The Price of Admission with Dan Savage (this covers about 80% of the book's content in a 5-minute video)
- Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person by Alain de Botton (an excellent complement to Dan Savage)
- The Wedding Toast I'll Never Give by Ada Calhoun (which is more about what comes after the wedding rather than before)
There, I saved you several hours of your life that you might have spent reading this book. You're welcome!
It's not that the overall message of this book was bad. In fact, the message was pretty good (and, conveniently for me, came at a time that I was very receptive to hearing it): choose life partners based on deep qualities that matter for a relationship (honesty, kindness, alignment of goals and values and the type of life you want to have), not based on a laundry list of things that you think would be nice to have but actually don't matter (looks, height, how they dress). Romance is actually about the day to day things you do to support a partner, not about butterflies in your stomach; "Marriage isn't a constant passion-fest; it's more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane nonprofit business" (p. 227). Oh, and it gets much harder to find a spouse as you get older, especially if you're a woman (for both cultural and demographic reasons).
The thing is that there are many other sources that deliver the same message better -- in fewer words, mostly; also with less sexism. To be fair to the author, maybe that wasn't the case when the book was published in 2010.
I frequently feel that nonfiction could be shaved down a fair bit; in this case, the book could be a third of its current length and it would be better. I learned essentially nothing in pages 100-250 that I hadn't learned in pages 1-100. Make your damn point and move on!
Plus, we do a lot of blaming women about being too picky. Perhaps (straight, monogamous) women are indeed pickier, to their detriment, than (straight, monogamous) men are... but it feels dated and unnecessarily icky to constantly center the conversation around how women, specifically, have got it all wrong.
For those reasons, I would not recommend this book to another reader, but if you want some very similar content for a fraction of the time, I would recommend, in order:
- The Price of Admission with Dan Savage (this covers about 80% of the book's content in a 5-minute video)
- Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person by Alain de Botton (an excellent complement to Dan Savage)
- The Wedding Toast I'll Never Give by Ada Calhoun (which is more about what comes after the wedding rather than before)
There, I saved you several hours of your life that you might have spent reading this book. You're welcome!