Kissing Dating Goodbye

A review - well, sort of - of a famous book written by Joshua Harris way back in 1997.

It took me a while to finish this book. Recommended by a cousin of mine (who's now nearly 40...gosh, you're middle-aged now, cousin!), I brought it along with me to many places to fill my free time. Like the Lawas camp in early December. A friend of mine was reading it too at that time.

In short, the book speaks my mind on a guy-girl relationship. My mind. That being said, there is even kind of a disclaimer by the author: "I've never claimed that the ideas I share in it are for everyone." Perhaps it is for me, or perhaps it's just me thinking so.

The central idea running from cover-to-cover of the book is that we should love God with all our hearts. It highlights, among others, 7 defective dating practices, and draws on real-life examples to show how negative the implications can be. It describes heartbreak, a continual sense of guilt, and ultimately failure in honoring God - set from the point of view of couples in unhealthy relationships. With mainly teenage readers in mind (Josh was 21 when he wrote the book), the book also points out that any godly relationship be directed towards purity. And it keeps mentioning that that's where contemporary dating often misses.

One of the self-talk material in the book is about asking ourselves, "How will my relationship with this person (opposite sex) prepare him/her for his/her eventual life partner?" I think it's interesting because it gives a future-oriented, long-term perspective on romance.

But the part which sinks deepest into me is near the end, where the author suggests us readers to make our own love story as special as it can be.

I'm sure people have different opinions on the ideas presented in this book, but that just makes situations more interesting in this world we're living in. Otherwise romance wouldn't be an ingredient in top box-office films. And humans probably would lose their humanity. And, there wouldn't be sites like this (I Kissed Joshua Harris' Dating Critique Goodbye).