Understanding Women Book

Men like reading what women write about them. They think they're getting an inside scoop with a perspective that will broaden their vistas, uncovering what was once hidden, and make the previously obscure obvious.
Who better, then, to write a book on understanding women than a woman? It's the premise and sales line of this book: "Romy Miller is a woman. She understands women. Now she's going to help you do the same."
Sold. This has gotta be good.
Or is it? By the time you get to page four, you're seeing sentences like this one: If you follow the advice in this book, you will what is commonly known as a "Catch".
Why, you ask yourself, is an essential word missing? Why is "catch" in quotes and why is it capitalized? Why is the punctuation not American style here and other places yet it is elsewhere? But you soldier on, knowing that even great books will have the occasional error or typo. You're not reading this to practice proofreading, right?
The more you read, however, the more you question this. Miller seems to think that her chapter headings should have periods, so you have chapter headings like "Teeth." and "Grooming." The chapters are often brief, barely a page in a book with generous leading and wide margins. You find yourself looking on the cover and inside to see if the copy you have is an uncorrected proof sent out early to critics, though you know that even those have been copyedited at least once.
The questions multiply. At the end of each chapter, there's a bullet list under the heading, "What we learned." We? Why isn't it "You," given that the writer, in theory, already knew this stuff? And why is it that often the items in these end-of-chapter lists aren't mentioned in the chapter they come after? Why is there a frequent use of all caps? People knew by 2004, the book's publishing date, that all caps was an annoying trait best reserved for nut cases and the very elderly. Why all the sentence fragments?
The writing doesn't reach the barest level of competency. There are misspellings, incorrect and poor word choices. The organization seems random. You've seen better writing from angry drunks on Craigslist. You wonder if the Book Factory is a vanity press of some kind'the cover design is ugly and amateurish'and you can't believe anyone ever paid $16.95 for it.
The advice is no better than the writing. It's clear that Miller was the up-to-date type who gave great advice to her limited circle of friends who would thank her and told her she should write a book. Her advice is like that found in magazine articles, which would have been the best length of this book. Much of it centers around superficial materialism. A man should have his own place, which should be free of rodents and cockroaches. He should drive a "manly car," have a good job, dress well, and wear excellent shoes, something Miller goes on about to a curious degree. He should be confident, she says in several chapters, often in the same way. (At times you want to accuse her of plagiarism, but as she's plagiarizing herself it would be hard to make that stick.)
Much of Miller's advice and writing seem as though she may be from a different age. True, some things have changed since the early aughts, but in 2004 were men meeting women in video stores, post offices and train stations? She advises men not to be "male chauvinist pigs," you know, the type of guy Rhoda would warn Mary and Phyllis about. (Oh that Ted Baxter!)
Men in Miller's world should open car doors for women, pull their seats out at restaurants, buy them flowers and chocolate (apparently, lots of it), give them CDs of oldies music, listen to them, and always show them respect, something contradicted by her constant use of "chick" for women and "boobies" for breasts, as in, "do things right and you'll be seeing her boobies." Respect?
What little direct advice Miller gives is awful. Treat first dates, she says, as if they're job interviews. Yeah, once you've asked a woman what college she went to, what she majored in and what she does for a living now, she'll be yours forever. Nothing says Interesting Man better than asking questions like those!
OK, I'm getting as catty as Miller. I could go on nearly as long as the book, though it wouldn't be worth it. You can pick it up and open it to any page and find unintentional howlers. Watch: Signals that you can approach a woman (page 102) include: She sends you a drink, She bites her lipsor (sic) licks her lips, and She jerks her head for you to come over.
With that, I'll jerk my head to direct any guy interested in understanding women to look elsewhere for good advice on how to do so. I paid a dollar for this book and felt cheated.