UPDATE APRIL 2020: This book is no longer in production. This sex book review remains as a reference for those who are interested in information about this book.
“Redbook’s Love Your Sex Life” is a hardcover book published by Hearst Books and sold by this sex toys store. As you can guess, it is written by Redbook Magazine (which is a women’s magazine that mostly focused on mid-life women) and is specifically written by Lisa Sussman. The book is a full-color book on the inside, but there aren’t any explicit pictures – there is just colored clipart. The book includes 7 chapters with 223 total pages. The book is a smaller size than average at about 7 inches tall and 5 inches wide and about an inch thick. The cover does say “Sex” on it, but it’s nothing explicit, so this book doesn’t have to be hidden quite as well as others.
The theme of this book is “The Busy Girl’s Guide to Getting Busy”, and, as you could guess, the book focuses on ways that a busy woman can get down to having, and enjoying, sex. Each one of the chapters really focuses on different ways that a woman can fit sex into a busy lifestyle.
As I’m fond of Redbook magazine (most of the time) for the honest advice and usually-good articles, I was expecting a lot out of this book. With many Cosmo books, my expectations are low, but with this book, I was really hoping for some good sexual advice that could benefit women who are living a busy life.
First off, before I start off this review, the book does make a couple assumptions. As these assumptions fit in with the target audience for whom this book is written, I have absolutely no problem with the assumptions. I enjoy reading for the knowledge, and as I don’t fit the target profile, I’m perfectly capable of weeding through suggestions that do and do not apply to my situation. The target audience for this book is: A middle-aged heterosexual woman who, most likely, is a stay-at-home-mom and is married to a working husband and has one or more children. This is what the book is focused around. If you don’t have children, aren’t married, aren’t heterosexual, or aren’t a woman, I’m sure you can adjust some of the advice to fit your personality.
So how is the book set-up? Basically, each one of the chapters follows a different aspect of your sex life. There’s “Live Sexy” which is all about learning how to feel sexy on a daily basis, “Keep your Clothes On” which is ways to feel turned on without actually doing anything sexual, “Sweet Talk” which is how to improve communication for a better sex life, “Get Off the Couch” which is how to make time for having sex, “Shake it Up, Baby” which is low-time ways to make sex more novel, “Trouble-Busting in Paradise” which is common solutions to common sex problems, and “Ten Sexy Habits” which is basically a list of ten things that the author thinks will help improve your sex life. You can read through the entire book from start to finish (like I did, which takes about 2-3 hours), or you can pick the specific chapter where you think you need the msot help.
Each chapter follows the same basic formula: First, there’s an introduction to the chapter that talks about what that particular aspect is important. Then each chapter is divided into smaller chapters that talk more in-depth about that particular chapter. However, in each of the smaller sections, there is my favorite aspect.
My favorite aspect is the “When you can Squeeze in…” aspect of each section. There is a “When you can squeeze in 60 seconds/5 minutes/15 minutes/an hour” which is four different ones for each section. Under each heading, it will give you tips and suggestions for that time frame. For example, under 60 seconds for Thinking Sexy and Feeling Sexy, it recommends slipping off your shoes and sliding your toes up against your other calf sensually. It also has two other suggestions under the 60 second heading. For the 15 minutes, it recommends taking some time during your work lunch break to try writing some naughty fiction.
I love the idea of the book itself. Most books just give sex tips or more ways to enjoy sex. This book focuses on the idea of fitting sex into a tightly packed schedule which, when you’re a college student with a full-time job and a blog, tends to be the case. I really enjoy the different suggestions that it gives. I will say that quite a few of the suggestions are suggestions that I’ve already read other times in other books, but in this book, things are arranged by, basically, “What Areas I need to fix” and then further by “If I have this much time, here’s what I can do to fix it”. None of the suggestions are out-of-this-world, and I really love the fact that this book encourages you to masturbate as well as many women’s magazines tend to skirt around the fact.
The set-up and formatting of the book really draws you into it. There are cute, colorful illustrations on some of the pages, and the text is really large and easy to read. The headings are colorful and break up text nicely. You don’t ever feel like you’re reading a huge chapter, but instead, it’s easily broke up into smaller segments for fun reading. I never once felt like it was a textbook or unfun book like I sometimes do with other sex education books. The pages have a slight slickness to them (like photo pages), and there aren’t any actual photographs in the book. The text is large enough to easily be read by people who have reading difficulties. On your computer, if you go to the EdenFantasys product page and then “Text Size Up” through your browser 3 times, that’s about the approximate size of the text in the book. It’s very eye-friendly.
I would definitely recommend this to anyone who is looking for a book that will give you small ways to be sexy and feel more sexual. The hints aren’t all that unique, but the book is pretty, easy to read through, and organizes things nicely. Plus, it’s set-up in a way that you can easily read a couple pages and then put it down which makes it optimal if you do have a busy schedule. The book does have a pretty narrow target audience, but if you don’t fall into that audience, you can easily adjust the suggestions to fit your lifestyle. If you are busy and want little tips to help you put sex back into the spotlight, this book can help.
