Book Review - The Case for Falling in Love

About the Book

Let’s face it, today’s “Relationship Advice Industry” is generally annoying, and for good reason.  Like new miracle diets, most of them don’t work.  Glutted by pop psychology and commercialized fads, the conventional wisdom in today’s books, movies and catch-phrases is over-simplified (“He’s just not that into you”), wrongly analyzed (“Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”), or just plain destructive.

According to Mari Ruti, PhD, that conventional wisdom implicitly convinces women that:

• …men and women are hopelessly different.
• …in order to attract a man, women must hide their strength, feelings and desires.
• …the only way to catch and keep a man is to manipulate him into new ways of thinking.

She says that these ideas have not only been proven wrong by reality (and history), they’ve proven to be destructive to women’s emotional makeup and psyche.

In her new book, the Case for Falling in Love, Mari Ruti urges women to ignore the noise, and redefine how they look for love; what they look for in love, and why they are looking.  By correctly analyzing the search for love—its pitfalls and triumphs—through the prism of Gender Issues, Ruti guides women toward emotionally healthy dating practices, non-combative (yet empowering) attitudes toward dating and the opposite sex, and the preservation of the beauty, mystery and nuance of classic Love and Romance.

Written in a funny, thought-provoking, and sharply intelligent style, Ruti’s Case for Falling Love engages and informs while dispelling today’s Top Misconceptions, such as:

• In order to make romance work, women need to learn to interpret the “male psyche” and develop a toolbox of luring techniques
• Women must resort to some variant of “Hard to Get” to win a man
• To succeed, women must “massage the male ego”
• Failures at Love are failures in Life
• …and More

More than just another self-help book, The Case for Falling in Love is a treatise on Love that refreshes and strengthens, while it enlightens and entertains.

About the Author

Mari Ruti was educated at Brown, Harvard and the University of Paris.  After finishing her Harvard doctorate, she spent four years as assistant director of the university’s program for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality.

She is currently associate professor of critical theory at the University of Toronto’s English Department, where she teaches contemporary theory, continental philosophy, psychoanalysis, gender studies and popular culture.  (Her lectures on love, sex and relationships are among the most popular on campus, often filling the classrooms and auditoriums to capacity).

Ruti is the author of two academic books:  Reinventing the Soul:  Posthumanist Theory and Psychic Life and A World of Fragile Things:  Psychoanalysis and The Art of Living.  She splits her time between Toronto, the East Coast, and Maui.

My Take on the Book

I have read a number of self-help books in the past and this one, though geared at women takes a common sense approach to the topic of relationships and falling in love and allows the reader to learn vast amounts of information in a fun and engaging way. I showed some of the parts to my wife and she mentioned that to her it was like the author was speaking directly to her, as if she was a close friend trying to listen and assist in any way she could.

This book has a little bit of everything for the person interested in dating, relationships or just romance. It is not a 100+ Ways type of book, but instead is a book that tries to spell out the truth and dispel many of the myths that exist out in the public eye in regards to relationships in general.

All opinions expressed in this review are my own and not influenced in any way by the company.  Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider. Please refer to this site's Disclaimer  for more information. I have been compensated or given a product free of charge, but that does not impact my views or opinions.  

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