A worthwhile read. Nothing really new here except the presentation: practical, understandable and actionable. I can see mistakes I've made and am glad to make those corrections based on Chapman's tender prodding.

I think that the five love languages part was really good. The rest of the book was a lot of repeating etc...Like what I used to do when I needed to extend my college paper. Also not to fond of all the Christianity references OVER and OVER.

Overall helpful info, but could have done the same good if written in an article and not a book.

If you want to know more about yourself and those you care about, read this book. It really helped me to give what my loved ones need the most. Relationships thrive when their languages are satisfied.

There are some great ideas in here for connecting to others and communicating love. These are all great ideas for enhancing relationships.

That being said, the author is too far enamored with the "Love conquers all" mantra.
The author seems to forget and disallow that there are some relationships that must be ended for the good of all. These are the toxic relationships that destroy us. You cannot love a toxic person's issues away. You cannot allow a toxic person's issues to destroy your life and the lives of others that you love in the effort to make them a better human being. It is especially hard for people to end toxic relationships with their parents, but when it needs to be done, it must be. However, the author blows past this. If you need evidence, see this quote:

"However, when a single adult grew up in a home where he felt unloved, abandoned, or abused, it is much more difficult to honor these parents. I believe that as adults we must take responsibility for enhancing the relationship with our parents. This is especially important if they were deficient in meeting our needs. There is nothing more important than love in this process. Love breaks down barriers, leaps over walls, and seeks the well-being of another. The amazing thing about love is that it is not held captive by our emotions. We may feel hurt by our parents, we may feel abandoned, disappointed, frustrated, and even depressed but we can still express love to them... No parental relationship is hopeless, as long as there is life, there is the potential for healing the past and carving a better relationship in the future."

Some relationships can be repaired by time and love, this is true. But to say that all parental relationships are worth saving is at best idealistic and worst detrimental. To continue on in a toxic parental relationship is incredibly detrimental. Part of having mature relationships is recognizing and knowing when they need to end.
On the flip side, the author seems to places all the responsiblity on the victim of abuse. That it is the victim's responsibility to change the behavior of the abuser. (In the little daily things that hurt or irritate us or even more hurtful patterns of behavior, yes.) However, in a sustained pattern of abuse, it is NOT the victim's fault. The victim would not be treated better if they loved more. The only time the author addresses this is when he cites the victim's responsibility to muster the courage to leave a physically or sexually abusive relationship, but only in a romantic relationship. It is always portrayed as the victim's fault that they are being treated this way because they allow it. Not impressed at all.

So I may or may not have listened to this very quickly, because it was about to expire on OverDrive lol :P I think I definitely would have gotten more out of it had I physically read it haha It still was an interesting "read" though! I haven't had as much spare time lately to read, so that's why I have been doing audiobooks so much...so I can multitask! xD Just makes it harder to retain the info sometimes...

This was a pretty easy read. Chapman uses good flow and all his arguments are smooth and organized. I found this book insightful in that I don’t think I ever fully realized that people love and receive love in different ways. It is a bit difficult to see myself before learning what was in the book, but I think I tended to believe that some of the love languages were good and some were just superficial. This book changed my views on that and has helped me realize that people do actually receive love in ways that I understand in my mind but not in my heart. All this is pretty much what Chapman explains is typical of most people. I think this should help me to understand and love the people that I am close with, but in my opinion is far less effective for acquaintances than he seems to suggest. It’s very hard to implement these ideas with people I only see casually once or twice a week on just a social basis. I read the singles edition and I don’t really know how different it is from the original. However, I was disappointed to find that many the examples were about couples in romantic relationships. Do people not have deep relationships outside of a significant other now? I guess single doesn’t have the same connotation now.

Being a single who has had his struggles with the female gender I found this book very enlightening. This book isn't geared solely towards dating it also deals with friendships, work relationships, parents and your kids. Basically there are five types of love languages that we all speak and we each have one that is predominate. If you figure out what the person's love language is you can "speak" it to them and fill their love tank. The five love languages are 1) words of affirmation, 2) gifts, 3) acts of service, 4) quality time and 5) physical touch.

It gives you hints on how to figure out what the other person's love language is. It also contains a test to take to determine what your love language is.

I also found it interesting that the author has found that there is a two year period in a new relationship in which speaking the love language of the other person isn't necessary. This is the "tingle" period. Once this two year period ends, and it will, you need to work at maintaining the love that was soooo present in the relationship before.

Good read and can be done quickly. Love is what seperates us from animals so we should find ways to express it to those who are important to us.

Um, too bad this book was primarily focused on nudging singles towards marriage.

Maybe my experience of 5 Love Languages for Singles was less charming because I listened to it via a generic audiobook male reader, versus Chapman's cheerful drawl. Perhaps because the gray morality that crops up in the initial book was made more apparent to me in this edition as the author instructs conventionally oriented straight people to respect their parents regardless of how the parent is treating them, avoid living together pre-marriage (cohabitating leads to dissatisfaction and divorce, as backed up by 'facts' and studies and the Bible), and avoid the 'sin' of non-monogamy (it's been tried and failed horribly, unlike marriage which I guess never fails horribly if you do it 'right'?).

Clearly, I wasn't the target audience for this book since I have different opinions on all three.

What threw me the most wasn't the assumption that everyone is or should be striving towards a 1950s nuclear family model to achieve life-satisfaction, it was the story about an adopted girl whose adoptive parents bad-mouthed the girl's (later young woman's) birth mother, calling her undeserving and problematic for a selection of behaviors that sounded more like the birth mother was suffering from poverty and mental health struggles than any innate flaws of character or moral standing. The interaction between adopted child and adoptive family, to me, showing red flags of abuse and I was deeply turned off by Chapman's acceptance of it, even while I appreciated his 'everything is fixable' attitude. I just wanted that adopted child to get the heck out of dodge and build an intentional family somewhere else who wouldn't use manipulative, blaming and aggressive behaviors to distance her from the person who birthed her, as though the adoptive family somehow deserved a child more because they had money. Problem! Run for the hills.

What this book lacks most (aside from the obvious re: LGBT and lack of POCs), I thought, was acceptance of single-hood as a legitimate state with its own many advantages. Bolster the singles, don't drive them like cattle towards romantic entrapment. The 5 love language frame is fun and interesting --it's application to any type of relationship seems a book worth writing and, unfortunately, only glimpses of that book are available here.

Writing is meh an Christian references may alienate some but.... It was chock full 'o wisdom.

Helped me understand how each of us can differ in how we express our love to each other. I frequently recommend this book to new couples.

useful book. if you aren't Christian you might be annoyed at times but its still worthwhile. will definitely help improve the quality of my relationships with family, friends and other important people in my life.

I’ve had my eye on this one for a while because the author’s love language concept resonates with me. It’s simple and sensible but not widely applied. He explains that people give and receive love in five different ways (through words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, physical touch, and gifts) and that the best way to love someone is through their language rather than your own. Your well-meant gift might not mean as much as a word of encouragement and a hug to someone whose primary love languages are words of affirmation and physical touch—despite your best intentions. Knowing what makes people feel loved and appreciated will help you to convey to them effectively (in ways that are meaningful to them) that you love and appreciate them.

I finally decided to read the book after being inspired to love people better. Not because I was doing a particularly poor job of it, mind you; it was just a desire that had been bubbling up inside me, a worthwhile pursuit and part of a decision to really focus on, develop, and appreciate my relationships with people. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in love the action as opposed to simply love the feeling. Loving people well is not always an intuitive business, though I think many of us feel it should be; and this is especially true when people receive love in ways that are different from our own preferred ways of giving and receiving love.

The older I get, the more I recognize the importance of devoting time and attention in this area of life. Corny but true—love is a wonderful, enriching, and heavenly gift, second to none, and I don’t want to take it for granted.