Learning to Love Again

Be suspicious of anyone speaking about protagonists and criminals in relation to this book, as they create the impression of this being a story. From those reviews (on Amazon) and the summary, I expected an inspiring relation of personal experiences or a fictionalized tale meant to show hope in the bleak moments following a breakup. This book is neither of those things and does not contain any characters whatsoever, heroic or otherwise. In fact, it is just another, repetitive self-help book which repeats elements of its title ad nauseum and preaches “fix everything by putting it on God's shoulders.”

There are several typos and grammatical issues which should have been caught by an editor, such as double letters beginning a sentence, overly long paragraphs, and exhaustingly repetitive sentence structure. The book also takes a heavy-handed approach to defining religion as the answer to all of life's problems, which I found particularly off-putting even as someone raised in a very religious environment.

One piece of advice in particular happens within the first chapter: “I cannot overemphasize the importance of sincere prayer where you give up your ability to handle things and put it all on God's shoulders and release.” Something about this seems dangerous to tell people who are already likely in an unstable state of mind. However, within the next page or two, this is contradicted by talk of accepting responsibility and atonement. While the statement is accurate - “...there can be no healing or love if we do not accept full responsibility for our thoughts and actions” - the talk of atonement suggests blaming the reader for whatever heartbreak they've endured. Again, this feels a bit irresponsible, as for all the author knows the reader may have just escaped a toxic or violent relationship. I'm also not a fan of the talk about emotion being “selfish” and “vain.” Eschewing “personal happiness” as a bad thing is just... really messed up, to put it kindly.

All this was within the first chapter or two (it's hard to tell within the Kindle app, as there are many headings within chapters and no clear chapter titles). I'll admit, the overly preachy narrative and the seemingly misguided advice were very off-putting. I pushed myself to keep going and give this book a fair chance, however.

As I predicted, it started falling apart the more religion came into play. Great advice, such as remembering that you're not entitled to a relationship with someone just because you want it, is interspersed with troubling insistence upon speaking as if one communicates directly with God. At one point, it even says that if someone doesn't love God or themself, they cannot love another person; this is extremely unfair to people of different religions and those who suffer from mental illness such as body dysmorphia, self-esteem issues, or depression. (For that matter, it gets tiring to see the author keep mentioning being ‘on the brink of depression' because it's clear that he doesn't understand that depression is a serious mental illness and not a temporary state of sadness.)

Overall, it never got better. It got more repetitive, more questionable, and never felt uplifting or inspiring to me. In fact, at one point it literally says that the best part of a woman is her ‘feminine nature' which ‘surrenders her will to do the will of God [...] in an exquisite form irresistible to man's nature.' No, thanks!

Maybe that's just personal preference; obviously, that's the case with all people who review books. Maybe you don't personally find that offensive. I'll leave you with a sample heading which is indicative of ALL section headings within this book and the overall writing style to help you decide if this is the type of book for you: “In the Name of God, the most Majestic, the Noblest, the Exalted One. Accepting Our Divinity”

This definitely wasn't a book I enjoyed reading and I regret making myself to get through all of it. The words “learning to love again” may never feel like real words again, since I've just finished reading them so often. However, I'm glad to be able to provide a more accurate review; I didn't lose anything since I ‘purchased' this book while it was free. Hopefully I can stop anyone else from wrongly believing this is an actual story rather than a typical self-help book.