BOOK REVIEW: The Manual

When I laid hands on my copy of “The Man-ual” by Andre J Carter, I was excited to see what advice he would bring to the table on relationships, but I was stopped in my tracks when I encountered the first problem: a formatting error.  When I cracked open the book, I shot straight to the index as a guide to see where I would start reading and thought Chapter Three that talks about living with your partner before marriage would be perfect. So I thumbed to page 12, like the index says and there’s no Chapter 3. Instead there’s a half blank page with 6 lines of text sitting at the top. So I return to the Table of Contents to make sure I have the right page number and flip back to page 12 again, but still no Chapter 3. Then I look over to the next page (page 13) and low and behold, Chapter 3 is right there looking me dead in the face. Good! Finally, I thought.

So, I began reading and figured so far so good until I got to the middle of the chapter which ironically sits on page 14 that says, “In the Bible days, men walked from country to country, but today, we have planes to fly. Times have changed and we must change with the times.” Really? Sure, this sounds politically correct, but what does this have to do with a couple living together before marriage? Does the fact that times have changed negate the truth of the scriptures and what the Lord says about fornication and shaking up? It appears that instead of presenting an objective, unbiased view about the subject matter that’s true and biblically correct, the author attempts to persuade the reader to accept his justification for why the act of living together before marriage is OK.

Then it occurred to me that the book isn’t written in stone or necessarily a template for dating based on  credible information, it’s a book that’s written from the author’s own personal experience with love which presents in and of itself, a biased point-of-view. After all, the “Man-ual” is a book written by a man for men so women you may want to steer clear of this one! Rating 4 stars

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