Aside from reading a variety of handbooks, devotionals, self-help books--or whatever people want to call them--for the past couple of CRRs, I've decided to respond to one more because of the reading techniques I used in it.
First, however, is the summary. Marriable was written by a Christian married couple who met on an online dating site. Meant to take the single man or woman from desperate to marriable, the book is crammed with information on gender roles, gender mentalities, and gender advice about the opposite sex. Blunt, honest, and hilarious, Marriable explores the two sides to relationships: the man's and the woman's. On a quest to find permanent security with a compatible life partner (because marriage, they insist, is forever; friendships, club buddies, and cohabitations are not), this couple's frankness whips readers into shaping themselves into people who are marriage material and committed to the fullest.
Being single my entire life (which, to be fair, my life has been rather short), I have often wondered what was so wrong with me that no guy (other than the occasional creeper--two, max, in my life, which I'm sure most girls would envy, but it made me wonder if I wasn't even attractive enough for them) has ever been interested enough in me to even ask me out on a date (forget the emotional "trauma" of never having a boyfriend). Because of this, I have often wondered if I am supposed to be married at all; since those doubts, I have tried to hide my real feelings behind walls of "I'm intentionally single just like Paul the apostle," "I don't need a man," and "Dating is just too much effort."
After a friend recommended the book to a mutual friend, I decided I could skim through it too out of morbid curiosity.
I read this book a lot differently than I usually read books. I think it was Tovani who mentioned that English teachers tend to read books from start to finish; this is my default, unquestionable way of reading. For this book, however, because of its layout with blurbs, side notes, and chapter divisions, I begin skipping around in the book. If I noticed a side note that caught my eye, I read the section it was explaining; if a certain blurb stood out, I read that; on a couple of occasions I read backwards, starting on one paragraph, then reading the one before it to build my background knowledge so I could make connections; if I saw a cool picture or interesting graph, I read it, followed by the paragraphs around it so I had an understanding of what the visual actually meant. Overall, I think I was still able to come away with just as much knowledge doing this than if I'd labored through the ADD style of the book from start to finish.
DiMarco, Hayley et al. (2005). Marriable: How to take the desperate out of dating. Ada, MI: Revel Books.
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