Book Review: Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. By Steve Harvey

So I was watching Oprah the other day, and Steve Harvey was a guest.  He was on Oprah plugging his new book, Act like a lady, Think like a man, which is about how men think and how women can take advantage of this knowledge.  I could not stop laughing at his comments.  He was taking the common situations that we women will analyze for hours with our girlfriends, and breaking it down into simple answers.   Essentially, according to Steve, we shouldn’t be overanalyzing because the species known as man is not a complicated creature.  

Now, my roommate (who was watching with me) had just gotten out of a relationship and could not wait to get her hands on this book to figure out what her man was thinking and what could have potentially gone wrong.  The next day she had the book and since she’s not an avid reader, I was astonished when she had finished the book in just a few short days.  Her frequent exclamations of, ‘oh my god yes!,’ and ‘thats so true,’ and ‘euuuugh,’ were reason enough for me to steal the book from her as soon as she was finished.  

I read the book equally as fast, but perhaps not equally as enthralled.  It was funny in parts, but not overly so.  And I felt like Harvey made sweeping statements about each gender that would not necessarily apply across the board.  Also, Harvey is a christian man, and therefore many of the standards and words of wisdom are rooted in faith (for example one cautionary rule is to look out for the man who does not attend church every Sunday as it shows his lack of faith and an unwillingness to commit).

Here is the basis of the whole book: according to Steve, men only need three things; loyalty, support and the cookie (no need for explanation). 

If woman give ultimate loyalty to their man (meaning they don’t drop em as soon as Brad Pitt enters the picture), support their man in every situation (even if they know he is wrong), and keep it interesting in the bedroom, then any woman can catch and land the man of her dreams.  As I was reading the book I began to become more and more self-conscious about the relationship that I was currently in.  For instance there is a scenario in which Harvey claims that if the guy you are seeing does not take you around to see his family and friends within the first few weeks of getting to know you then he’s not interested in anything long-term.  Also, if he just introduces you by name and not by a title (i.e. girlfriend), then you are just the catch of the day.  Well, I hadn’t been touted around yet, I had met his roommate but that was on the first date, and he wasn’t about to label me as a girlfriend yet…plus his parents are divorced and both live out of the city.  But what did Harvey mean, that I should be taken back to the hometown now that we were into our 5th week of seeing each other?  The more I read the book the more I became paranoid that I was just a “sports fish” as Harvey labels the girls that are always short-term girlfriends and never the wife.  

So I took my supposed wisdom gained from this book and approached the guy I had been seeing for a few short weeks with tough questions such as:

1. Are you still in love with your ex-girlfriend?

2. Where do you see yourself in five years?

3. Do you want kids?

4. Have you established yourself professionally and financially so that you can focus on other things, such as me?

5. Do you talk to your friends about me?

For the most part I got the answers I was looking for, but there was a lot of laughter from him as well.  Especially the “are you in love with your ex-girlfriend” one. Apparently you CAN just ask these things and guys will tell you straight up…if they are good guys.  But, then he turned it around on me and lo and behold I don’t have straight answers to these quesions…which led me to believe that I must see him as a sports fish!  

So then I showed him the book.  This guy is one of the most intelligent people I know, and he immediately picked out the sweeping statements about women and suggested that Steve Harvey is playing devils advocate by slyly telling woman how they should be loving their man while letting them in on the “secrets” of the male mind.  My worries about my present relationship started to melt away as my guy continued to laugh his way through the book.  

Now, I know what you are thinking….your man is playing games with you!  Of course he doesn’t want you believing Steve Harvey, his game would be up!  But I don’t think so.  I think that men can be just as complicated as women in relationships and we can’t rely on a book to tell us how to behave.  The best policy is honesty.  Having the courage to speak up about what you want (and not making them read between the lines) is probably the best way to know if you are in the right relationship.  

Would I recommend this book to a friend in need? Mmmm maybe, but only if they needed a few good laughs, definitely not to get their love life on track.

What do you think? Have you read the book, did you find it useful or no?