Stars: ****
I received this book for review from Multnomah in honour of Mother’s Day. I also decided to use it for my Themed Challenge and Pub 08.
This is the first time I’ve seen a self-help book that is for a specific generation. Technically I’m not a Gen Xer but I’m close enough that I was interested in what this had to say. According to the introduction, a Gen Xer was born from 1960-1980 and a Millennial was born from 1980-2000. I was born 1983 but my brother was born 1977.
Anyways, this book is also Christian Non-fiction so it covers the challenges and blessings of marriage for Generation X Christians. As I’ve stated before, I’m not Christian either but I am spiritual and believe in deity so I just took most of what was said about religion in a loose way to fit it to my needs. However there was one chapter that I just couldn’t agree with or fit to my life and it wasn’t the Church Service or Growing in God chapter. I will get to that but first, a synopsis of the chapters:
Introduction, Dealing with Unrealistic Expectations, Revisiting Your Relationship Role Models, Committed for Life, Finding Balance, Overcoming Past Relationships, Intimacy, Media Matters, Children, Everyday Stuff, Church Service, Romancing Your Spouse, Different by Design, Conflict Resolution, Taking Care of You, Communication, Lovemaking, Dreams and Goals, Money matters and Growing in God. The end of the book also has discussion questions and scripture references for each chapter that I thought was a nice addition.
Now, that chapter that I had qualms about is the one titled Different by Design. I don’t deny that men and women are quite different in how we’re made. We react to situations differently, handle our emotions differently and have different needs. Some of what is in the chapter on these things was okay. However the chapter also talked about submitting to your husband. I understand what they are saying about how your marriage won’t work if you both try to be leaders but at the same time, I don’t think it should always be the husband who makes the final decisions and speaks for the family and never the wife. Scripture is given and references to Eve being created for Adam to compliment him are given but then I don’t follow the bible. I could go on and on about my thoughts but this isn’t the place to have a religious debate. If you are Christian, you probably agree with this idea and so you will have no problem with the chapter. It’s well written for someone who agrees with the idea.
Now let’s move on to the writing style. For the most part I didn’t have any trouble understanding the author’s meaning and I liked the peppering of comments from other Generation Xer’s throughout the book. It’s always good to get the opinions and thoughts of more than just the author as this decreases bias. My only problem was on pg. 153:
“I can choose to take the high path, sin and lie about it, or confess when I have fallen. Given the options, the first choice is the least painful and the most rewarding.”
To me this is saying that sin and lie about it is the high path.
Also there is one part where a paragraph is repeated. I can’t find it now of course.
Overall though, I really enjoyed the book and will be keeping it and referring back to it. I’ve realized a few things about my marriage that I may have been handling in correctly and will be attending to those in the future. I’m glad I got the chance to review this book.
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