Review of Smart Love
Posted: 07 Aug 2022, 12:13
[Following is a volunteer review of "Smart Love" by Vincent Fudge II.]
Smart Love, written by Lloyd Vincent Fudge, is a quasi-fictional narrative on mending a relationship. The main character and narrator Edward, who has a wife and two children, shared his journey in learning the cause of a failing marriage and how to mend it. It comes in the form of a monthly journal of a one-year ongoing project name “SMART Love”. By describing the challenges, efforts, setbacks and struggles from January to September, a conversation of Edward and his therapist was recorded in October and it gradually untangled some of the internal struggles and cleared his thoughts on whether or not staying in the marriage was the right call. Love and relationship are abstract concepts but nurturing and mending them must be done by concrete action, so the narrator gave very specific examples of how he, as the husband, tried to figure out whether the marriage was worth saving and whether mending it was the best for both he and his wife. In this one-year project, he learnt more about himself and the relationship. In summary, the book is a twelve-month journal of Edward’s quest for fixing the relationship predicament he was in, plus some practical advice at the end for surviving a failing relationship and maintaining a healthy one.
Love and relationship are not measurable, but the writer tried to make the efforts specific and quantifiable, which is quite practical and useful. Although everyone’s situation is different and some of Edward’s advice might not apply, I still think most of his experience is quite useful in general as he had mentioned things that are more often than not neglected during a fight and those might have been the key to rescue a relationship with the effort of both ends. I like how he put it as a sharing in a friendly, casual and informal tone. Instead of being a proud survivor of a marriage or a condescending relationship expert, Edward simply shared his case and the precious lesson he learnt from his nearly broken marriage. It is not an expert guidebook nor a “Mending Marriage for Dummies”, but it is instructional in some chapters and gives good insights in identifying toxic behaviors and the underlying costs. The mending process was also a process of self-discovery and self-improvement.
Edward’s ways of mending are inspiring, but I have some reservation when it comes to some of the shared visions or goals. I appreciate the process of the couple sharing future visions together, but when it involves too specific scenario, scripted acts and conversations, it is challenging to fulfill it without being unnatural. It is only a very small part of the marriage mending process, but it’s worth mentioning. It doesn’t undermine other helpful sharing.
I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. It is recommended to adult readers who want to maintain a healthy relationship or improve their relationship. It covered but not limited to the topics of unfaithfulness, altercation, communication, financial disagreement, toxic behavior and issues of different sizes. I truly believe that this book is useful for improving communication problems.
******
Smart Love
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Smart Love, written by Lloyd Vincent Fudge, is a quasi-fictional narrative on mending a relationship. The main character and narrator Edward, who has a wife and two children, shared his journey in learning the cause of a failing marriage and how to mend it. It comes in the form of a monthly journal of a one-year ongoing project name “SMART Love”. By describing the challenges, efforts, setbacks and struggles from January to September, a conversation of Edward and his therapist was recorded in October and it gradually untangled some of the internal struggles and cleared his thoughts on whether or not staying in the marriage was the right call. Love and relationship are abstract concepts but nurturing and mending them must be done by concrete action, so the narrator gave very specific examples of how he, as the husband, tried to figure out whether the marriage was worth saving and whether mending it was the best for both he and his wife. In this one-year project, he learnt more about himself and the relationship. In summary, the book is a twelve-month journal of Edward’s quest for fixing the relationship predicament he was in, plus some practical advice at the end for surviving a failing relationship and maintaining a healthy one.
Love and relationship are not measurable, but the writer tried to make the efforts specific and quantifiable, which is quite practical and useful. Although everyone’s situation is different and some of Edward’s advice might not apply, I still think most of his experience is quite useful in general as he had mentioned things that are more often than not neglected during a fight and those might have been the key to rescue a relationship with the effort of both ends. I like how he put it as a sharing in a friendly, casual and informal tone. Instead of being a proud survivor of a marriage or a condescending relationship expert, Edward simply shared his case and the precious lesson he learnt from his nearly broken marriage. It is not an expert guidebook nor a “Mending Marriage for Dummies”, but it is instructional in some chapters and gives good insights in identifying toxic behaviors and the underlying costs. The mending process was also a process of self-discovery and self-improvement.
Edward’s ways of mending are inspiring, but I have some reservation when it comes to some of the shared visions or goals. I appreciate the process of the couple sharing future visions together, but when it involves too specific scenario, scripted acts and conversations, it is challenging to fulfill it without being unnatural. It is only a very small part of the marriage mending process, but it’s worth mentioning. It doesn’t undermine other helpful sharing.
I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. It is recommended to adult readers who want to maintain a healthy relationship or improve their relationship. It covered but not limited to the topics of unfaithfulness, altercation, communication, financial disagreement, toxic behavior and issues of different sizes. I truly believe that this book is useful for improving communication problems.
******
Smart Love
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon