amandameira 's review for:

The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Gary Chapman

1.0

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The premise makes sense: we all need to be loved in different ways. The meat of this book is garbage. Not only is it written for an 8th grader, but the examples the author uses include clearly toxic, abusive relationships wherein the abused partner is encouraged to stick it through for arbitrary periods of time, coddling their abusive partner and forfeiting any self dignity in hopes that the relationship will magically turn around if they love them the right way. Some of the situations were very troubling and it was obvious a greater intervention was advisable. In addition, the author uses this platform to preach his religious beliefs. Lastly, he brings up the concept of dialects of each language—again, a great concept—and completely fails to deliver on it, giving very few examples or investigation into these dialects. It’s as if he made it all up with no thorough research or scientific backing, and wrote a hasty and poorly compiled book about his opinions on a few observations he made along the way in his career as a misogynistic couples counselor.