Book Review: The Frisky 30-Day Breakup Guide

Getting over a breakup can be about as difficult as brushing your teeth with superglue. Popular website The Frisky understands the pain behind a difficult end to a relationship, and has put together a simple book of instructions, offering suggestions to women on how to ease their aching heart: The Frisky 30-Day Breakup Guide.

The big question here is: Does this book actually perform head surgery, offering comfort where most books have failed? Well no, it doesn’t. But while its advice certainly is not any revelation to the dating world, there might be some value behind its quirky day-to-day activity if you’re the type who can follow its prescribed medicine.

Some women prefer to wall themselves off from the world for a few weeks, sorting through their pain on their own. When they have spent their last tear, ate their last chocolate bonbon, and kicked around their last bout of “why me’s,” they finally emerge from their cave a newborn single. This is the type of woman who may not find this book helpful.

On the other side of that coin are the women who find comfort in talking to their friends about their ex, reading inspirational breakup quotes from celebrity figures, and being given a daily guide to help focus their attention back on themselves. The discomfort of a breakup is created within our own mind, so while we may not have control over those who love us, we do have control over loving ourselves, which is the basic premise behind the book (more or less).

The process of falling out of love with someone is not just a one-day occurrence, but rather an ongoing crash landing that may have taken its toll for months or even years, tearing down self esteem and social networks. Troubled relationships can pull us away from ourselves, our family, and our friends. Once the debris is cleared from the wreckage, we find we are alone, or at least we think so.

This is where the book comes to the rescue, offering suggestions of ways to reach out to yourself, your friends, and some of the key members of your family (like your dad). The book starts out by removing the things which may remind you of your ex, then calling your best gal pals and having a “yab” fest, catching up on old times and making plans for new ones to come.

Friends offer the opportunity to talk out your feelings, allowing your pain to be comforted by the rush of oxytocin triggered by the intimate and emotional conversation. For the next couple days, the suggested daily activities will focused on reacquainting yourself with someone you may not have been paying too much attention to lately… you!

The book will have you taking a day trip, going dress shopping, cooking dinner, starting and finishing a “do it yourself” project, signing up for a class, going to a movie (alone), getting a massage, and enjoying a little self-sex. While these ideas may all be things we have heard before, there is something official about reading them from a book, versus hearing them from a parent, friend, or nosy hairdresser.

While no book in the world is going to make you forget about “old what’s his name,” the Frisky 30-Day Breakup Guide serves as a reminder to get you out of the house and resist sitting around eating junk food and feeling sorry for yourself (well, that’s one of my vices, anyway). I think that the most helpful portion of this book is not necessarily the event calendar (although it may be for some), but rather the plethora of advice given from various women about what makes them feel better after a breakup.

There are some good ideas here, some of which I had never thought of before, such as changing the name of your ex in your cell phone to “Jerk” or “Insecure” to serve as a reminder not to answer. I also like the idea of “buying your own damn flowers,” when there is nobody else to buy them for you. This book may not supply all the answers you’ve been looking for, but it will at least provide a few chuckles in between the chocolate binge cycles.