"Pithy analogies punctuate this largely sober self-improvement missive that aims to help men and women in the dating world.
How do you find Mr./Ms. Right? What is true love? Why do we keep falling for the wrong people? Tomes tackle these thorny questions, but in his debut work that addresses those issues, as well as many others, Roberts prefers a more rapid-fire approach. The result is a fast-paced foray into the human heart that never really slows until the last conundrum is dressed down and squared away. Roberts doesn't have a wall of degrees to support his observations, but what he does have is a kind of pointed earnestness, perhaps born out of his military background and religious upbringing. That training, along with experience filled with life lessons learned, has allowed him to parachute deep behind Cupid’s lines. “Half-stepping is for half-steppers, lovers should prefer stomping the yard,” he says. That type of heavy language is consistent throughout, only pausing now and then for some Biblically inspired advice that actually comes off a lot less dogmatic than one might expect.
Roberts does succumb to a few bothersome double standards, however. Many women will no doubt feel that the author puts too much of the onus for a successful relationship on their shoulders. But even here, he manages to skirt away relatively unscathed, largely by acknowledging from the outset the inequity he perceives. For as much time as he spends on interpersonal communication, he devotes an almost equal amount of time to focusing on the individual psyche and how past hurts can impact future opportunities. Love hurts, as the song goes, but you write the lyrics.
Relatively sound advice for the lovelorn, energetically and economically packaged."—Kirkus Reviews
