Millionaire Women Next Door: The Many Journeys of Successful American Businesswomen Book

I have read all of Thomas Stanley's other books, and put this one off until it had some age on it. Now that it's about 6 years old, I read it. I was underwhelmed. I remember his other books, especially "The Millionaire Next Door", as being a novel mix of reported research and the stories of millionaires, focused on the difference between "balance sheet" and "income statement" millionaires. I expected mostly the same here but focused on women. Here's what I found:

-Stanley quotes the research, but at times it's a bit loosey goosey as to how he comes up with conclusions. Seems like he surveyed only the rich, but based conclusions on how they differed from the non-rich on only that data in some cases. Maybe it just wasn't explained correctly but it didn't seem all that clear.
- More like Stanley's "The Millionaire Mind", he focuses this book on small business owners and the folks that are more than barely millionaires. He comes around in the final two chapters to discuss people who are not business owners that have saved the magic amount, including a teacher and a widow who made their wealth through real estate. Not being a small business owner myself, I prefer these other stories and would have liked more, but I understand from Stanley that business ownership is the most likely way to wealth.
- Strangely, not every "case study" in the book is a woman. In some cases Stanley chose to profile a man to illustrate an example. If you were expecting only women to be profiled, you are out of luck here.
- Also strangely, Stanley reproduces a number of letters sent to him, mostly in the middle of the book. Many of these just seemed bizarre and needn't have been included. And many were from men. Stanley appeared to be stretching for pages here.
- Stanley notes that most of the women that fit his criteria for wealth have been married. He touches on the impact of the husband on the wealth of the family, but I was left wondering, especially in the case studies, about the dynamics of married earners and investors. He really didn't approach this topic head on. Seems like a good idea for a follow-up book, "Millionaire Couple Next Door".

I enjoyed this book, but quite a bit less than his previous books. I would recommend reading his first two millionaire books first, with this left for the curious.