For Young Men Only -- Book Review

I've been able to do another book review, this time on a book called "For Young Men Only: a Guy's Guide to the Alien Gender" by Jeff Feldhahn and Eric Rice.

You can buy the book here.

For Young Men Only is another book in a series of popular books that help men and women understand the other gender. In this installment the focus in on teenage boys, helping them to understand the alien gender they know as girls.

The authors take an interesting approach by not just giving their opinions on what teenage boys need to know about girls, they actually did their research. They set up focus groups, spoke with hundreds of teenage girls in malls and ignored obvious stuff. They wanted to know the shockers that most guys wouldn’t believe, but were true of most girls. But one of the most important aspects of the book for me comes from the fact that the authors are Christians and while they don’t let that fact impact the results of their studies, the influence of the Bible does come through in their commentary. And as a minister and former youth pastor I really appreciate that fact.

So here are the 6 Big Surprises that are outlined in the book. (These are also the 6 major chapters of the book)
1. Guys think that girls go for guys who are rich and ripped. But in reality most girls are attracted to a guy’s hidden qualities.
2. Guys think that girls are attracted to “bad guys” who come on strong and treat them like junk. But girls are secretly afraid they’re not special or attractive and will be drawn to a guy who affirms her by pursuing her.
3. Guys think that when a girl gets emotional and irrational they’re out of luck. But the truth is when a girl is emotional she’s probably not irrational and there’s a lot a guy can do.
4. Guys think that girlfriends are heartless. When they want to break up they send confusing messages, then dump the guy with no warning. In reality most guys are clueless. While some girls are heartless most guys can protect their heart if they learn to read the signs.
5. Guys think they never know what to say to a girl, so they end up looking like idiots. And it’s true that a girl wants a guy to talk with her, to really make an impression, a guy just needs to listen.
6. Guys think that girls want sex just as much as they do, and they way to impress her is to go all the way. But the way to really score with the girls is not to press her about sex but to be her protector.

This book doesn’t get into any detail concerning how the girls just treat the guys. That’s covered in other titles. But this book does give some interesting insight into how teenage girls think about teenage guys. I do appreciate that it incorporates a lot of the survey and research in each chapter. It even gives links to check out the entire research study. And the final pages of the book gives a great recap and questions to ask. It’s great for personal application.

I gave a copy of the book to our youth pastor because I think it will give some great ideas and insight in ministry for teenage guys.

All of these books in this series are really helpful and I would recommend all of them.