29 October 2009

'He's Just Not THAT Into You'



I happened to read this while casually browsing at a book store, and found it uproariously funny.

It's typically about women's love problems (there are always so many of them no) answered in the most atypical, and succinct manner by two people called Greg Behrendt (he's the deal here!) and Liz Tuccillo. You have women coming up with all kinds of questions relating to men whom they are interested in and Greg answers it with characteristic sauciness and wit. So a woman asks, “I've been overweight lately, so my BF tends to ignore, ill-treat me... What should I do?” So the answer reads, “Girl, the only weight you need to get rid of is that 150 pounds of lump staying with you” or something to that effect.

Yet, too much of brutal honestly does not work, especially if you are pinning hopes on a guy to reciprocate, because this book dissuades all such women. Greg's take is that any man who wants a woman badly will never let her down. He won't do the disappearing act, he won't miss her calls, he won't ignore her, he will introduce her to his friend....all that and more. So a guy who defaults in any of this is simply not THAT into you.

He is merciless with some of the questions and rips apart any illusions you may have of your man...sometimes taking it too far. This could be a problem, because obviously there aren't any perfect guys out there. But the book believes they exist!

It's a wicked, fun read, even if it makes the women look quite desperate and silly. One of the females even asks Greg with some irritation why he didn't consider writing a similar book titled, 'She's just not that into you' that would make the men seem equally foolish.
But Greg rules out any suggestion of chauvinism by saying such a book for men wouldn't sell even 8 copies. Not because men don't fall as violently in love or don't go through heartbreaks. But simply because men have other ways of dealing with love failures. They'd simply hit the bar, he says.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,

Stumbled on to your blog, while looking for upamanyu chatterjee's interview, after reading english august.
just wanted to recommend the movie version of "he's just not that into you" it's hilarious as well.

-Anon

Shona said...

I had read this book some time back and found it to be quite a read. I also read Liz Tuccillo's How To Be Single which also not that bad. Nice review .

Sandhya Iyer said...

Thanks Shona I'll keep a watch for that book you mentioned on singlehood.

Sandhya Iyer said...

Anonymous: I haven't seen the movie but I'm curious to know how the book has been adapted into a film. The book is just a compilation of questions and answers of course.

Anonymous said...

Here's a snap-shot of the quotes from movie:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1001508/quotes

I certainly wouldn't bring it into my all time best or anything like that, but it certainly was hilarious.

-Anon

workhard said...

I would definitely enjoy this book. i know about the movie based on this book. and it was hilrious..
Will definitely read it....

Work from home India