Subtitled: Women and Romantic Obsession

I can’t remember where I first heard about this book, though I believe it was from a blogger. The topic sounded fascinating, a look at women and unrequited love through history, literature, and modern culture. Unfortunately, what made the book fascinating also made up what I consider its biggest flaw: it covered so much area that the whole thing felt very surface-level.

To explain – the book addressed multiple areas of unrequited love:

• the sociological views of unrequited love through history
• literature’s treatment of unrequited love, evolving over time
• the various things that may cause unrequited love to turn into obsession
• the manifestation of self-development through unrequited love
• the manifestation of self-destruction through unrequited love
• crossing the border into criminal activity because of unrequited love
• pathways toward healing and letting go of unrequited love

Did I say unrequited love often enough? Heh. That’s because the entire book was pulled together by that one central topic, yet at the same time, it looked at so many different related topics that none were addressed with any great depth. Now, this may simply be my current viewpoint, having just read multiple books of very focused psychology. In the end, though, while I enjoyed the book, I kinda wished it had been a series of many books, all with a lot more focused depth. I could easily see this being a series of related nonfiction books. Having only a brief treatment of each subject satisfied me less as a whole.