I read this book in 2 days; it is a quick read that incorporates stories to illustrate human nature when it comes to expressing love--especially in marriage. It is brilliant not for its originality of ideas but rather in its categorization and clarity of ideas. In the words of John Lennon, "All you need is love." Love is the most important thing, and yet, many people have a truly hard time feeling loved and successfully expressing love to those who matter most to them. Why is this? Dr. Chapman thinks it is because people speak different love languages. Within these broad fields there are different "dialects" but overall there are five love languages that people value: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch.

In general, each individual has a "primary language" or two that he (or she) values above others. As a result of our complex variations of nurture and nature, people have individual preferences. When we are "courting" someone we experience the euphoria of "falling in love" and in general all of these languages are "spoken" between two parties to some degree. But after marriage (or even after about two years of courting--the euphoria stage rarely lasts a few months longer than two years), expressing love continually becomes less natural. It is common to focus on expressing love the way we want it expressed to us rather than understanding the needs of our spouse and choosing to "speak their language;" true love requires choice and sacrifice. This is not rocket science, but I found it very helpful to read through it and recognize the power of thinking through this simple revelation of differences in expectation and affection.

People have already said it, but I'll reiterate: overrated, overly-simple, heteronormative, sexist, and unexpectedly very Christian themed (bible versus included). It's common sense relationship advice wrapped in a Bible-read-along bow. Blah.

This year I'm doing a Reading Challenge; so I have 26 books with specific subjects that I need to read.
n  BOOK21: A book that will improve a specific area of your lifen

I think every married couple should read this at least once.
Do the quiz and know what Love Language your partner speaks.

For the advice given in this book I give Chapman a five star rating.
The writing on the other hand was not that good. He tends to "speak" down to the reader, making you think - I am not that stupid. Also he repeats himself A LOT!

Reading this I think is the easy part: to practice what Chapman suggest is the difficult part.