Official Review: Panacea For Love by Dominic Okolue
Posted: 30 Mar 2017, 16:14
[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Panacea For Love" by Dominic Okolue.]
2 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
No matter how awesome a man or woman may be, all marriages face tough times. It's in these moments that people can either work through it or give up, breaking their wedding vows to divorce their life partner and become another divorce statistic. As someone who is happily engaged and have previously had a divorce myself, the lessons I found in Panacea for Love by Dominic Okolue were solid and relatable.
Dominic has been doing relationship and marriage counseling since 2008, including preparing couples for facing marriage. He's also a pastor, and as such much of the guidance in this book is based in Christianity. Dominic begins by talking about how he met his wife Daina who he's been married to for 14 years. This explores one of Dominic's most important pieces of guidance - one must want and look for a great marriage to find it. This may seem simple and silly, but it's important - Dominic explained his intentions to Daina on their first date! While it may seem forward or crazy to tell someone on a first date that they're looking for something serious and hope to find someone to marry, it's also very sincere and vital. He tells a few stories of other couples throughout the book (changing their names of course) that highlight the importance of his advice. For example, he relates the story of a woman who had been with a man for many years and even had kids with him, but they still weren't married. When she tried to get him to marry her, he said that marriage wasn't something he wanted and refused to do so. If either of them had been upfront a decade earlier they wouldn't have ended up in the mess they were in!
Panacea for Love includes several stories like these to go along with his advice which come in very handy. While the book is rather short (my review copy was less than 50 pages in PDF form) it does still hit some important points and the stories help back them up. As I mentioned before, however, Dominic definitely writes for Christians and some may feel offended by some of his advice. One such piece of guidance states that the man should always be the head of the household and the woman supports him. This doesn't mean the woman is a slave, mind you, and Dominic is quick to point out that a husband must love and take care of his wife. Many people do genuinely agree with this advice, but it makes for a good litmus test for the book - if you disagree strongly or feel offended by that advice, this isn't a book for you.
While the book covers some good information it suffers greatly from a lack of editing. I was easily able to find an average of one or even two errors per page and word choices sometimes made reading a bit rough. According to the about the author section Dominic speaks more than eight languages, which is incredible, but it no excuse for not bringing the book to a professional editor to fix the smorgasbord of errors within. Dominic also highlights several things in the book, which is great, but two different methods are used with no real explanation about the difference between them. To make matters worse, while one is the typical yellow highlighter style the other simply changes the font color to a light blue, a blue just barely light enough to make it harder to read what's being highlighted and therefore ruin the intended effect.
Overall I found some good advice in the book, and it's something that would be incredibly handy for Christians looking to get married and have a fantastic, lifelong relationship. I would rate Panacea for Love 2.5 stars if I could, but feel it's more worthy of 2 out of 4 stars than 3 due to all the errors. If Dominic were to get it edited I would happily rate it 3 stars, however, and I can still recommend it to Christians looking for love.
******
Panacea For Love
View: on Bookshelves
Like CataclysmicKnight's review? Post a comment saying so!
2 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
No matter how awesome a man or woman may be, all marriages face tough times. It's in these moments that people can either work through it or give up, breaking their wedding vows to divorce their life partner and become another divorce statistic. As someone who is happily engaged and have previously had a divorce myself, the lessons I found in Panacea for Love by Dominic Okolue were solid and relatable.
Dominic has been doing relationship and marriage counseling since 2008, including preparing couples for facing marriage. He's also a pastor, and as such much of the guidance in this book is based in Christianity. Dominic begins by talking about how he met his wife Daina who he's been married to for 14 years. This explores one of Dominic's most important pieces of guidance - one must want and look for a great marriage to find it. This may seem simple and silly, but it's important - Dominic explained his intentions to Daina on their first date! While it may seem forward or crazy to tell someone on a first date that they're looking for something serious and hope to find someone to marry, it's also very sincere and vital. He tells a few stories of other couples throughout the book (changing their names of course) that highlight the importance of his advice. For example, he relates the story of a woman who had been with a man for many years and even had kids with him, but they still weren't married. When she tried to get him to marry her, he said that marriage wasn't something he wanted and refused to do so. If either of them had been upfront a decade earlier they wouldn't have ended up in the mess they were in!
Panacea for Love includes several stories like these to go along with his advice which come in very handy. While the book is rather short (my review copy was less than 50 pages in PDF form) it does still hit some important points and the stories help back them up. As I mentioned before, however, Dominic definitely writes for Christians and some may feel offended by some of his advice. One such piece of guidance states that the man should always be the head of the household and the woman supports him. This doesn't mean the woman is a slave, mind you, and Dominic is quick to point out that a husband must love and take care of his wife. Many people do genuinely agree with this advice, but it makes for a good litmus test for the book - if you disagree strongly or feel offended by that advice, this isn't a book for you.
While the book covers some good information it suffers greatly from a lack of editing. I was easily able to find an average of one or even two errors per page and word choices sometimes made reading a bit rough. According to the about the author section Dominic speaks more than eight languages, which is incredible, but it no excuse for not bringing the book to a professional editor to fix the smorgasbord of errors within. Dominic also highlights several things in the book, which is great, but two different methods are used with no real explanation about the difference between them. To make matters worse, while one is the typical yellow highlighter style the other simply changes the font color to a light blue, a blue just barely light enough to make it harder to read what's being highlighted and therefore ruin the intended effect.
Overall I found some good advice in the book, and it's something that would be incredibly handy for Christians looking to get married and have a fantastic, lifelong relationship. I would rate Panacea for Love 2.5 stars if I could, but feel it's more worthy of 2 out of 4 stars than 3 due to all the errors. If Dominic were to get it edited I would happily rate it 3 stars, however, and I can still recommend it to Christians looking for love.
******
Panacea For Love
View: on Bookshelves
Like CataclysmicKnight's review? Post a comment saying so!