The Book by Its Cover

Recently I read a book called ‘Marry Him: The Guide to Marrying Mr. Good Enough’. Strange as it seems for me, a married woman, to read a book like this – I wanted to see what this author had to say for my single friends. The author makes a good point that occasionally a book looks interesting from the cover and then you get into it and you can’t believe how great or bad it is. What she means to say is that sometimes the superficial is fantastic in a potential mate but the inside is horrible. Or the inside is fantastic but you need a little time to get to see that with a person as well as you would with a book.

It made me think about how many books I started and was seriously trudging through until at a certain point they picked up speed and I couldn’t put them down. But I had to invest the time to get to that point where I didn’t want to put the book down. And I had to invest some time to get to a point where I could decide that I’d rather have needles inserted into my retina than to continue reading a book.

Her whole argument is that women often say there is no spark or chemistry after the first date. And that’s just not enough time to make that call. I had to agree with that. Even my husband for instance, who I met while he was wearing a hideous bright red Hawaiian shirt, would never have gotten past the book by its cover phase if I had used the criterion that so many women use.

I knew I liked him that first night. It was easy to talk to him and he was funny. I can’t entirely say if we had sparks or chemistry, I just knew I liked his sense of humor. But he had that shirt and he was plagued with two left feet. If I had abandoned him that night, I’d need to read that book right now but from a different perspective.

I kept thinking about my husband and all the fantastic books I never would have read or experienced if I had just left them at the cover and the first few pages. So women, please let some of the hang ups go! Give some people and books a little bit of a chance.