“Why Do I Love These People?”: Understanding, Surviving, and Creating Your Own Family
Product Description
We all have an imaginary definition of a great family. We imagine what it would be like to belong to such a family. No fights over the holidays. No getting on one another’s nerves. Respect for individual identity. Mutual support, without being intrusive. So many people believe they are disqualified from having a better family experience, primarily because they compare their own family with the mythic ideal, and their reality falls short. Is that a fair standard to… More >>
“Why Do I Love These People?”: Understanding, Surviving, and Creating Your Own Family
Tags: Creating, Family, Love, people, Surviving, These, Understanding
September 3rd, 2010 at 1:54 am
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As for my review of the book, it was given to me by my sister who thought I would have a great laugh over it, as she knows I can’t stand these Gen-X overbearing Daddy-love guys. Like, excuse me, but just because you decided to give parenthood a whirl you are now an expert on LOVE?
The book is patchy at best, there is no through -line and it so last year’s Oprah that I couldn’t believe that anyone could have possibly given it a good review. My guess is loving family members and friends of his – because this is just huggy-lovey-touchy-feely sugar-coated hop up the kids on Froot Loops garbage.
I DO NOT recommend it unless you are not getting enough SUGAR in your diet or if you are really interested in seeing a cutting-edge author turn into Captain Kangaroo.
Rating: 1 / 5
September 3rd, 2010 at 2:10 am
The stories in this book are pure claptrap. If you don’t already know your family and know how to love them – without Bronson’s guidance – some inspirational drivel is hardly going to change your life, though you may be reduced to tears because your own dysfunctional family just doesn’t measure up.
This former fiction author has only been a husband and father for several years yet has the pompous audacity to promise to show his readers how to love with the book’s stories. I expect my teachers to carry some credentials.
Loving is not a learned technique picked up by reading “Woman’s Day” quality stories. Loving is learned through *personal* experience.
This is just another example of a world gone voyeuristic. Thanks for some more *reality*. Yawn.
Rating: 1 / 5
September 3rd, 2010 at 2:18 am
I felt for some of the families, and wanted to shake others, despite my sympathy for their plight and the author’s seeming admiration for them. The real disappointment was the author’s poor writing and lack of any thoughtful insights or understanding. Save your time and money.
Rating: 1 / 5
September 3rd, 2010 at 4:57 am
Po’ Po. The above reviews say it all. They, like many of us, see through the desperate needs of the narcissistic author using others’ personal stories as his stage. There is nothing sincere about Po Bronson. Save your money and buy something from Dr. Phil.
Rating: 1 / 5
September 3rd, 2010 at 7:12 am
I have some serious criticism of this book and you might want to consider it before purchasing.
A little background first; Po Bronson showed great promise early in his career with fiction in the form of “Bombardiers” and “The First 20 Million is always the Hardest”. I would have loved to see him stay with fiction. This “kinder, gentler” Po, this “family guy”, this, “get out the tissues and cry” Po is basically an unqualified reporter of psychological mediocrity and blandness that has gripped this country for too many years.
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Each story was a peapod of family dysfunction laid bare by the author [...]. “What Am I Going to Do with My Life”, was certainly on the same track but looks like Pulitzer material in comparison. This new “ultra-lite” version of “Po-lite” could easily be read by children [...].
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Of the 19 stories presented here (once again – most of them in the San Francisco Bay area where Bronson hails from and only a few that reach to the UK) most are your standard [...] family dysfunctions, though to be fair at least compared to his last book [...] he at least sprinkles this with racial diversity. [...]
Bronson claims to have interviewed (and I think this term is used loosely as he never says what exactly constitutes an interview) 700 people over three years time. I wonder what stories did NOT make the cut. [...]
Early in the Introduction, Bronson sets forth his [...] concept for a book that is only tied together by its physical binding. His concept, his declaration is so over the top that I almost had to give him credit for bombast. I mean, who in their right mind would ever say that the book they have written will tell you: “The picture that will emerge is of what’s truly involved in loving someone.”
Bronson goes on to refer to this as “The Promise” of his book: “The people in this book will show us how (to give and receive love.).
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[...], Bronson never includes a story or an opinion from the opposite camp – there are no people in this book who have chosen not to procreate [...]. I know some immensely interesting people who have no interest in having babies or making families [...].
Rating: 1 / 5