Reviews for Martha Gardener's book

The average rating for Martha Gardener's book based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-01-16 00:00:00 Gloria Jeziorski Well, I have this great friend (you know who you are) who has finally figured out men and did it with this book. With a recommendation like that, why wouldn't I read it? All I can say is I'm glad she's reading some more to broaden her understanding, because this guy is a fruit loop. Not only does he try to derive archetypal significance from movies like Saving Private Ryan and Iron Monkey (why he doesn't refer to research to prove his points, I don't know) but he preaches a philosophy called 'intimate separateness' (typified by the actions of the couple in the movie 'the Rookie') which is basically allowing your partner to be the stereotypical beer-swilling, golf-playing grease monkey and never saying a word about it, because his primitive male brain wouldn't understand the words you used anyway. That's right, men physically can't process what we say if it contains any emotion-type words. Also, it might be dangerous for us to even try to communicate. A quote, "Nothing less than her safety and the health of her relationship and family may depend on her developing oxytocin-based relationships with other women with whom she can depressurize her emotional relationship with her partner." FYI the 'her' above is the typical woman who according to the author would want to see an action movie 0% of the time because of her brain chemistry. To sum up: This book is a HOOT! Read it!

Review # 2 was written on 2016-04-19 00:00:00 Alejandro Londono 2.5 . It was written in 2003, since then, part of what is discussed of this book- which Michael maintains was based on research- has been successfully refuted. He emphasises though that he refers to the average man; Gurian also admits that there is a percentage of men that do not fall into this category, this partly to brain structure (this is true), nonetheless, some of his claims about the average man's personality or approach to sex are exaggerated and even men have challenged it. If I had to read this book again (and I did), I would skip most of it and focus on the biology sections. I particularly enjoyed the information that comes under the heading The Biology of Male Emotion, pages 80- 85 of my book. Right after comes another heading: The Male Mode of Feeling which also provides some additional insight. In this chapter he explores hormone and brain structure. That chapter alone deserves the 3.5 stars but as a whole the book is average: 2.5 stars.