The Language of Love and Respect or Google Map Theory

The Language of Love and Respect promises better communication with your mate and falls under the spiritual growth genre of self help books. It is a book I would not normally read as I frankly find the whole self help genre to be completely overdone and overhyped. I believe in living my life daily while trying to be fully present for experiences as they present themselves. Frankly I have always been baffled by people who seek spiritual awareness in a book. So the self help genre for me is a self indulgent and odd little phenomenon. The Language of Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs has not changed my view of this type of book. To be clear there were probably a few good pointers in this book, but most of them seemed as if they'd already been written about somewhere else. The premise of this language is that men communicate essentially in blue while women communicate in pink. Women see things with pink sunglasses and men with blue; women hear things with pink hearing aids and men with blue. While the references to pink and blue are clearly old fashioned and stereotypical, the theory has a bit of merit. One need only drive on a roadtrip with a man anywhere to realize this theory. I explain it in terms of Google Maps. When I drive and navigate towards a destination I print out Google turn by turn word directions. It helps me to know when and where to turn. My husband, on the other hand, proved my theory this summer on a road trip to Ohio. He was stunned I hadn't printed out the actual map. Pink glasses. Blue glasses. I call it google map theory. The entire philosophy present in The Language is a bit too reminiscent of Men Are From Mars and Women Are From Venus. The language in this book also threw me as a reviewer. The author also describes what he calls the "Crazy Cycle" as the space in a communication exchange where you are trapped and communicating at cross purposes. The grown up verison of "No I didn't." "Yes, you did." In his defence he does give several examples of how to get off the cycle or avoid the cycle. He cites this as an example: on an occasion when his wife was planning to go help a friend with a new baby, she previously noted she would be going to him, but when it came closer to the event, she told him again and the author realizes he didn't remember her saying anything about the new baby. He suggests that as it is typically a male trait to not listen carefully enough, that it was his fault. Instead of stating: "You did not tell me that." the author paused and realized he was at fault. Instead the statement to his wife was something like this: "I am sorry, I don't recall hearing you tell me that you were going. I apologize I must not have been listening." If men read this type of book then there may be a few lessons learned from these types of examples. Still I wish he'd thought this out with more sensitivity to terminology. The term "Crazy Cycle" is somewhat offensive. Eggerichs is a P.H.D. and a Pastor who runs marriage clinics and counselling groups. He lives in East Lansing, Michigan. There are a few worthwhile communication lessons here, but this sadly is not a book I would go out of my way to buy as it has been done before, and I think also better, by other authors.

The Language of Love and Respect gets a $$ out of $$$$$

Thomas Nelson Publishers, $14.99 U.S. 2007 originally published as Cracking The Communication Code. (sadly a better title the first time around.)

Thriftymomma was not compensated in any way for this review but received a free copy of the book from the publisher.

Lemon

I have been a great fan of Cordelia Strube from the time she first drew attention for her novel Alex and Zee. Strube's first novel was nominated for the W.H. Smith Books In Canada first novel award and it garnered a fair bit of praise roughly 15 years ago, back when young Canadian authors were being discovered and celebrated regularly, in both this country, and on the world stage. Strube's various other novels Milton's Elements and Teaching Pigs To Sing are firmly tucked away in my own personal home library of great Canadian authors. Teaching Pigs To Sing was a finalist for the Governor General's Award. When I heard of Strube's latest novel Lemon, I quickly contacted Coach House books and asked for a review copy for thriftymommasbrainfood. And from the moment I received this one in the mail I couldn't put it down. I read it on the treadmill at the Y and while waiting for my daughter's at their various activities which they do all over town. I literally could not put it down. And that doesn't happen that often any more as my reading time vies with many other obligations, commitments and passions. Strube is a witty author, with a strong narrative voice, perhaps an aquired taste for some, but her characters are often strong females with a very jaded view of life, or a cynical eye. Lemon is no exception. Lemon is the story of a disenfranchised young girl, 16, named Limone, nicknamed Lemon, who spends her days rebelling at school and her off hours volunteering in a children's cancer ward at a local hospital. At the start of the story when we meet Lemon, she has three mothers. The biological mother seeking her, her adoptive father's depressed ex who tried to kill them both, and her most recent stepmother. Lemon lives with the most recent stepmother, a school principal who has become agoraphobic since being stabbed. The young teen escapes her life by reading voraciously. In her sad world teens beat each other up to feel something, sexting each other constantly, then betraying their friends by posting their pervy messages on sites like Youtube. Cyberbullying is the norm at Lemon's high school and teachers seem to look the other way as most of the students have some secret underground perversion. Despite the claim that Lemon feels she has three mothers, she sees herself as an orphan in a world that is not worth living in and she spends her spare time hiding in trees observing the drug dealers, thugs and lowlifes in her neighbourhood. While she was at one point adopted, those parents have long since broken up. When we meet her, her adoptive mother is dead, her birthmother is searching for her and Lemon is conflicted. Her adoptive father, who eventually it is revealed, turns out to be her biological father, is a horrid skirtchaser she dubbed The Slug. Lemon's closest friend is a child named Kadylak dying of cancer, her one teenage friend is the school slut and her only other friend is a dark intense poet practising to be a psychiatrist. When Lemon's only true friend dies of cancer she receives a package from the family containing the girls' drawings and it plummets her into a downward spiral. "Brightly coloured birds with stick legs under an always smiling sun. Drawings I watched her pen intently with felt marker, wondering why the sun was always smiling. She who could not go outside for fear of burning her chemo-blasted skin always drew smiling suns. I believed she would survive because of those suns." While this book is extremely graphic, Lemon is a beautiful character with an unflinching view of the really desparate world she feels she has inherited. In the mirror she sees her biology tying her to people she either doesn't know or cannot stand. In the end this is a story about the nature of family. When a young drifter who is also an environmentalist comes to live with the odd pair, the novel clearly becomes an essay on the nature of family and what it is that binds us to this earth. Lemon is one of the most humourous, sad and touching books I have read in a very long time. It is very respectful of adoption language and truthful in rendering the emotions involved in this bittersweet process. It is life in an adoptive family, but darker, way funnier and taken to the extreme. This is a story I will treasure.

Lemon by Cordelia Strube
Coach House Books
Toronto, 2009, 260 pages, $19.95 Canadian $21.95 U.S.
ISBN1552452204
thriftymommas rating $$$$ and 1/2 out of $$$$$.