As much as I wanted to love this book, I couldn't even finish it. At times I've wanted to be a marriage counselor so the aspect of couples therapy grabbed me. Unfortunately the author's writing style annoyed me. I tried to read as much of it as I could, but I didn't get past the first chapter. I had to force myself just to read that much. I'm sure the idea of the book was a good one overall, but maybe if it'd been written in a different way, I could have finished it. I have to say I was quite disappointed.

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I tried to like this book, I really, really did! The premise is interesting: a journalist sits in on a year's worth of couples therapy group sessions. Indeed the sections in which she describes the five couples in the group and their interactions in therapy are interesting, as is the dynamics of the group.

However, interspersed with descriptions of the group sessions are segues about different philosophies of marriage counseling, and profiles of the originators of the different schools of thought. These sections are dry and go into an academic level of detail that is inconsistent with the novelistic tone of the rest of the book. The transitions between recounts of the therapy sessions and history of psychoanalysis for couples are jarring.

This book does have some interesting content, but I wish it flowed better.

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This is a decent book. It follows the story of a few couples in therapy. The author follows one couple much more closely than the other 4 couples. Parts of the book drag but overall a good book.

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