Non-Fiction: Love in 90 Days by Diana Kirschner

This time of year, the pressure to be paired is almost palpable. And whether or not society is supportive of singles seems to be a cyclic thing. Sometimes the pendulum swings one way and everyone is looking for a reason to justify both unpairing or even just celebrating your single state. But that’s not the cycle that we’re currently in. In Love in 90 Days (Center Street) author Diana Kirschner makes this abundantly clear:

Love is life’s golden ticket. It brings in the brightest of colors and the rich high and low notes. There is no mistaking it; you know when you have love. And you definitely know when you don’t. The big question is, What are you doing about not having love in your life? Are you going to risk being alone and lonely, missing out on all that love can give?

So, okay: no pressure, right? But wait, it gets worse. It turns out there are health benefits to being in a relationship, too:

Study after study has shown that love relationships have a huge impact on our psychological, economic, and physical well-being. Having a life partner can create a higher sense of self-worth, provide intimacy and emotional support, which fulfills the deepest need for human connection, and lead to greater wealth and economic stability.

So much for accepting your single self as you are. If you thought you were happy alone, think again. Doctor Diana makes it clear: single sucks. But here’s the problem: what’s a guy to do.

In Love in 90 Days, Kirschner offers up all the answers. And that’s not tongue-in-cheek, either. After all, the subtitle is The Essential Guide to Finding Your Own True Love. That’s a tall order, so Kirschner doesn’t spend too much time on making potential readers feel bad about their partnerless state: she snaps us right to work.

Unfortunately, I was well into Love in 90 Days before I realized that the book is completely not aimed at me. What was my first clue? Try this chapter heading: “Field Report of DUDs and STUDs.” And though some of this advice could work for either gender, Love in 90 Days is most obviously (obvious to anyone but me, I guess) a book aimed at helping women find their ideal man. So I can not tell you if the book works. I can tell you this, though: it’s a 13 week program that takes a sensible and pro-active approach to helping women zero in on their “own true love” in less time than the average sitcom season. Works for me.

From everything I can see, the book is doing very, very well and getting Kirschner a lot of attention. And that’s good, because here is what I hope: she’ll do so well with Love in 90 Days that she’ll write a follow-up, and that follow-up will get me going on finding my “own true love.” There are worse things to hope for.