From Publishers Weekly
Professional matchmaker Martenson, who successfully landed her own soul mate, presents a chatty advice book that shows readers how to "stop searching and start attracting" your ideal partner. Though peppy, welcoming and entirely encouraging, there's much here that will ring familiar (you've got to love yourself before you can love someone else, "You cannot change someone"); Martenson also leans heavily on the "law of attraction" most recently popularized in Rhonda Byrne's The Secret, instructing readers to "identify what I do want" and then "expect, listen, and allow it to happen." Throughout, Martenson provides personal stories, anecdotes and exercises that reveal strategies for understanding and making the most of yourself, including plenty of self-affirmation and self-assessment. A Q&A chapter covers overlooked odds and ends and specific problems, such as how to impress over the phone, why sex on the first date is a bad idea, and whether it's permissible to slip out the back door "if my date is creepy." Entirely optimistic, if occasionally self-serving (an appendix on "How a Matchmaking Service Can Help"), this guide makes a dependable cheerleader for those falling behind in the game of love.
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Review
While it might be a tragedy that about 50% of the married divorce, it might be considered somewhat of a miracle that the other 50% stay together. The numbers might be improved, assuming staying together is the more desirable option. If we spent time carefully selecting a mate and could meet a good number of potential partners to choose from, Marla Martenson has lots of suggestions on how we might be more successful. She renders the whole process of choosing a mate more objective. She should know, she has been running a matchmaking service in Los Angeles for years.
Assuming you want to meet a mate, Martenson strongly recommends adopting the four point process of The Secret, The Law of Attraction. In brief: 1. Name what you don t want, 2. Name what you do want. 3. Feel what you want. 4. Allow it to happen.
The book explains how it is important to relate to others for the right reasons and how we can figure out what are the right reasons for us. Better healthy alone than sick together she suggests. She offers suggestions on how we might improve our capacity for love and questions how attractive a soul mate we are. She even talks about how we might get ready for our soul mate when they appear, e.g. setting the dinner table for her before you even know her. Another of her section headings reads "How to give the heave ho" to a "No go."
Finally towards the end of the book, Martenson addresses a variety of questions on such topics as equality, honesty, who pays, how to make a good impression, how to ditch a creepy date, if he s so great why is he single, and many more. She even compares and contrasts internet dating with match-making, to the advantage of the latter of course, her point being you get a lot more feedback and coaching with the latter.
All in all a light book covering a wide waterfront with humor. The approaches to matehood recommended by Martenson would even help to enliven existing marriages. The other aspect of this book is that it points to a happier life even without a soul mate.
--Jim Ward, Echo, Jan 2008
