While this book is more geared towards couples who are already together and have been together for a while I did find it interesting. And since I read this book to hopefully help with my writing of romances I am going to be tackling this review from the perspective of an author. One of my favorite sections in this book was the troubleshooting section of the chapters which focus on how to navigate arguments, potential and not, constructively.
The book is divided up into nine sections the first one talks about how important the dates, not to mention conversations in general, are and the other eight sections which are dedicated to explaining the eight dates as well as what the authors hope you will achieve and how to successfully navigate them.
Now while some of these conversations might be a bit too soon for your characters to discuss with each other, depending on how far into the relationship you are going to go. For instance, some dates/conversations might not be needed in the story for a book that is going to end with a Happily For Now. Although if your end goal is for them to have a Happily Ever After, either with marriage or a long-term commitment you might want to consider at least looking at all of them.
The first part deals with how to navigate the book and get the most bang for your buck in the conversations/dates.
The dates are Trust & Commitment, Addressing Conflict, Sex & Intimacy, Work & Money, Family, Fun & Adventure, Growth & Spirituality, and finally Dreams.
Trust & Commitment - A conversation that should probably be discussed early in the character’s relationship.
Sex & Intimacy - Depending on the heat level of your story may or may not be a needed conversation unless you want to have your characters talk about whether or not they will be doing anything.
Work & Money - Again maybe not something you want to include in your story if you are going for a happily for now ending. But it might be something you want to touch on if you are going to go for a happily ever after. It could also be used to create some conflict in regards to one of them working too much or if there is a large economic gap between them and it makes one of the other or even both uncomfortable for one reason or another. Although if you decide to have your romance spread over several books it might be useful to bring it up at some point.
Family - This is a conversation that would be useful no matter the ending you go for because at one point in the story your characters will probably at the very least be meeting their s/o’s parents. But whether or not they discuss expanding their family can probably be decided based on which end you go with be it happily for now or happily ever after. Of course, if you decide to have the romance go over several books the conversation on expansion can be saved for another story.
Fun & Adventure - This is a conversation that can happen at any point but might be useful to happen when they are planning dates.
Growth & Spirituality - This is a conversation that can happen at any point in the story.
Dreams - This is a conversation that I can see working better either at the start of the relationship or after the low point when the characters are reconnecting once again depending on the story you are going with or the characters.
All in all I think the dates in the book are excellent suggestions on how to have conversations between your characters. Especially if you like me struggles with writing conversations for them to have a lot of the time. Not only can the conversations be used to bring your characters together but some of them can be used to create conflict between them depending on how you write the conversation. All in all I rather enjoyed the book and highly suggest it if you are looking for ideas for conversations/dates for your characters.
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