Customer Reviews

Guys Are Waffles, Girls Are Spaghetti

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I looked at this book for my teenage daughter yet found myself reading every word. Chad nails the differences between guys and girls in this book, and he says it in a humorous way that every teen will love. As a dad, I want the absolute best for my daughter. If you want the best for your kids, you can't ignore this book. Nice job Chad.

I have to admit that the title of this book didn't appeal to me and had me wondering if it the content would be as bad as I perceived the title to be. However, I was pleasantly surprised! I am a Christian minister and as such have been involved in a lot of relationship counseling (pre-marital and marital), directing a marriage ministry complete with biannual retreat as well as having a read a number of books on relationships, marital and otherwise. I have to say that this is one of the better books that I have read on the subject. It is entertainingly well-written, wisely insightful and practically applicable. And while, as I said, I read it in spite of the title, the analogy to waffles and spaghetti is actually quite clever, well-employed and helps to make the points memorable.

Two things worth noting about this book:

1) While it is apparent that the authors are Christian and that obviously influences the content, it is not overtly religious and as such I don't think that even non-religious folks would be put off by the very occasional reference to their Christian worldview.
2) This book is stated to be written for teens, and some of the style of the writing is definitely geared towards the younger set, but I find the content is good for any age group as the principles are universal and ageless.

Ok I am kind of embarrassed to have even read this book since it was my little sisters, but I am really glad I did. She kept pointing out all these "guy" things that I was doing, and why I was doing them. Finally when she was done with the book I decided to pick it up.

I really enjoyed reading through this book. Not only did it help me understand why girls act the way they do, but I also learned alot about my guy friends, and how our actions come across. The book is also pretty easy to follow. Instead of just a bunch of psychology and philosophical mind twisting junk, Chad explains some basic differences in a way that I can understand, like humor and football. The whole waffles and spaghetti thing totally makes sense to me. I just really liked this book.

I am going to talk to my youth pastor and see if we can use this for our next group discussion.


-Kevin/16/PA

I was really hopeful this book would be a fun, smart look at the differences between boys and girls, in order for my son to gain some insight into the complexities of relationships. It is, instead, a rather sterotypical look at boys vs. girls, mars vs. venus and now, spagetti vs. waffles.

Summing up the book in a few short phrases: boys like to be smelly, are competitive, truly do not understand girls and like to focus on one thing (here is where the waffle analgogy comes in). They have individual "boxes" just like waffles, where they spend their time and they dislike switching from box to box, instead they prefer to concentrate on one thing at a time. Now, for the girls. They are like spagetti, everything is intertwined, so they can begin on one topic and find themselves ending up on a completely different subject because everything is so connected. They can also multitask because they are not limited by "boxes", they have the complete freedom of a whole plate of noodles. This is why they talk so much and confound boys. This is also why they are so difficult to understand, since they do not concentrate on the facts, but feelings. Sound a little bit sexist? Though there might be some truth to the fact that boys and girls think and act differently, it felt a little too generalized for me.

The most unusual aspect of this...the book starts with a hate letter written to the author stating that "you can't just go around saying things like guys are this way and girls are that way like you know what we are and why we do the things that we do". The author goes on to say that the author of this letter admits to only reading the cover. I have read the whole book and sadly, I have to agree with the letter.

The book also has too many unpleaseant religious aspects in my opinion. I am a Christian and have no issue with presenting good, clean facts to address awkward subjects like bodies and relationships and sex, but I really can't agree with the thought that ever since Eve, girls have felt shame and need to work on this...or that ever since Adam, boys have been perverted and need to work on that. Adam and Eve's mistakes are referenced a few times, reminding the reader that mistakes have been made, we will therefore be presented with wickedness and we must remember that God loves us. There is a wonderful underlying theme to this thought, but the way it was presented just did not feel loving to me, it felt more like a warning to be heeded.

Throughout the book there are little blurbs as well between Chad (the author) and MacKenzie (the girl editor). I am sure they are there to present a bit of a female slant to this very male book, but they are awkward and detract from the book rather than enhancing it. If they would have had a male and female perspective throughout it might have seemed more balanced. Instead, this is very much Chad's book with some editing (and other bizarre) comments by MacKenzie. An example: after the word algorithms is used in a sentence determining how many people a person should date, here is the blurb...MacKenzie: I like algorithms. Not real algorithms. Just the word....Chad: Yeah, I try to drop it casually in conversation...hoping that no one asks me to explain further...

The theory behind boys and girls being different was a great idea. Making it more complex by adding scientific facts about the brain (which even I wanted to skip over, so a kid would certainly skip it) and mixing in some sporadic religious views just muddied the topic. I do give it three stars because it did contain some excellent points in between all of the things I found annoying. The section regarding sex and what it means to boys compared with what it means to girls was pretty spot on. It would give girls the knowledge that boys view sex as "something that feels good" while girls feel that sex is "something you do because you are in love". I might be generalizing a bit myself there, as the book did, but this and a few other sections made good points for consideration. I only wish it had been condensed into something short and sweet without all the extraneous stuff. Too bad.

When I first opened this book, I was pleasantly surprised. It had a funny intro and I like how they showed the many differences and similarities between teenage boys and girls. Their comparison of people to waffles and spaghetti was quite funny and the connection was easy to comprehend. I had never heard of anyone comparing two different types of people to food so this made me interested. Before I read the book, I quickly paged through the chapter titles to get a brief summary of what was to come. At this point, the book looked promising because of its potential and good advice to come.

As I read the first two chapters, I realized that they were pretty much the same. I thought it was just some kind of continuation from the previous chapter but then I kept reading and every chapter pretty much reinforced the waffles and spaghetti theory that was previously mentioned in the beginning of the book. I pretty much got the idea that they were conveying throughout the entire book in the first chapter. As for the advice, it really fell short. From the description on the back, they made it seem like your life would be better and you would understand the opposite gender much better and that would somehow help you. The only advice that I got was don't do anything stupid and treat people with respect which I already knew. Another part of this book that was quite annoying was the author's commentary on just about every page. I had never seen this before and I now know why. It was very distracting when I was reading a chapter and would have to stop reading whatever the chapter was about and read the authors comments which were quite frequent. Since there were 2 authors, (Technically 3 because one guy and a couple wrote the book) the author who did not write the passage would comment about some word or phrase that the author put in there. It was just like reading some inside joke between two people that you have no idea what it is about. All they seemed to do was criticize each other's vocabulary and after a few pages, it got old very fast.

To conclude, this book is good for about fifteen minutes. I really wouldn't recommend reading this for any age group unless you're bored at B&N or stuck in an airport. It truly fell short and became quite annoying after a while.

I am a 36 year old mother of a boy and a girl who are both thirteen years old. I can remember my life very clearly as a teenager myself and I try to use those memories to keep perspective when dealing with my teens. I have been married for twelve years and my husband and I are both very happy and the marriage is stable. We believe in God although my family are members of three different religions, Catholic, Methodist, and Baptist. (Just some quick background so you know where I am coming from in my review) So much of this book was interesting to me that I found myself reading portions out loud to my husband at dinner, driving in the car, or even waiting on our kids while they had haircuts. So much of the biological stuff I didn't know and found compelling. I thought it was presented in a way that would keep teenagers interested. The beliefs on boundaries and committed relationships meshed very well with my views as a parent. I loved the part on dating where the author suggests setting boundaries on where not to go and what not to do on a date. Staying home and watching a movie when parents aren't home is asking for things to go further than you mean for them to go. My daughter read the book and enjoyed it for the most part. She got a few chuckles from the authors ideas regarding periods and dating. Although there are A LOT of generalizations made in the book, my husband and I agreed most of these are pretty spot on. My husband is such a waffle and I am totally spaghetti. I am the girl who can be upset about one thing and start crying over it and then it leads to fifty billion other unrelated things and my poor husband is sitting there trying to follow along. He is quiet for long periods of time and I routinely ask "What are you thinking about" and he says "nothing" and then I get upset because he won't tell me what he is thinking about. Chad Eastham explains that contrary to popular belief, men really do have nothing compartments in their 'waffles' and when they go to those compartments they chill and think about NOTHING. This book was never dull and we are a Christian family, we believe in God in our own ways and all believe in the Bible. However as the book moves along Eastham speaks about God and the Bible more and more. I wasn't turned off until I read the section where Eastham suggests kissing (one quick kiss even) wait until a man and woman have decided to get married. I think that is just not reasonable and I fear that this will turn off all those teenagers that the book could have helped. I am all about the book's suggestions to save sex for marriage and to not have any relationships or dates until teens are older. I agree that young teens who date have higher chances of stds, pregnancy, low self esteem, heartbreak, etc than those who wait until they are older. But to say that a teenager shouldn't begin to date until their late teens and then not expect a kiss until they are engaged just didn't feel right to me. I dont' personally agree with this. I don't believe a kiss (and I'm not talking long make out sessions on the couch or ten minute frenchies here) between two 16 or 17 year olds is going to mean they are going to have sex. Yes, I like this book and I believe in a good 90% of the information provided and I think this book would be wonderful for all teens to read, however I wish some of the mega morality would be toned down just a tad so that more teens will stay with the book and embrace the theories here that they could benefit from.

Both of my boys enjoyed this book. The cover and title grabbed them immediately, and one started reading it pretty much the minute it arrived. He read straight through it, coming to me frequently with "Did you know...?" and "Hey, I just read that..." comments. He is just starting to think about boys and girls and how they may differ, and I know he really appreciated this look at how his female friends may approach life differently. He loved the editorial comments by the two authors and the layout really appealed to him. His twin brother, who NEVER reads unassigned non-fiction, was so intrigued by his brother's comments that he picked it up and read it second. Although he wasn't as enthralled as his brother, it clearly was a good read for him, too.

For my part, I'm not overly crazy about books that make such sweeping generalizations about gendered behavior, but on the other hand, a book with a ton of subtlety would not have been nearly as readable. For a starter introduction to personalities, I think this book is fine. Honestly, I think that for a young person even to get the idea that not everyone ticks in the same way is a valuable message!

Great book; does exactly what it sets out to do.

We had a class in church that used the original version of the book as the source of the class lessons. It was a marital class that was very exiting and well received by attendees. This version of the book is for a teenage audience and I think it is well deserved of 5 stars. It is very engaging with just the right mix of content and humor. It is very relevant to today's teenagers and it seems the authors have really done their homework and have current working experience in teenage topics. I found myself reading it even though I have studied with the adult version. I would highly recommend this book for any parent with teenagers or any teen that is looking to better understand the opposite sex. A great tool in this critical and sometimes misunderstood phase of life.

I am 16 and this book amazed me! It was like Chad had written this book especially for me! He talked about all of the problems I had thought were just me and I felt like he was talking to me one on one because of the language he used in the book. Rather than being proffesional, cold and impersonal, he used language you would use when talking with a friend. I loved the book and it really brought me to understand what makes girls and guys so different and it made me laugh alot along the way. I would recommend this book to any of my friends! It was a wonderful read and really helped me wrap my mind around why guys are so different from me and my girlfriends.

Review by Jill Williamson

Chad Eastham makes me laugh. And that's a very good thing when you're talking about serious subjects, like relationships. In this book, Chad explains how girls' brains and guys' brains are different and how that affects the way girls and guys behave. It's fascinating and oh so true.

This book is gold. There is so much wisdom between these pages. You want to know what's up with boys? Or why girls do that? Whatever your question is, Chad knows the answer. This book will help you understand the opposite sex, which is a skill that will be valuable your whole life. I highly recommend this book for all teenagers, because it's that good. And it's funny too.