Book Review: Rick & Bubba’s Guide to the Almost Nearly Perfect Marriage

When I finished my review of John Maxwell’s “Put Your Dream to the Test”, I went back to Thomas Nelson’s Book Review Bloggers site to request another book to review. There were slim pickings at that time; I think 3 books were available. One of them was “Rick and Bubba’s Guide to the Almost Nearly Perfect Marriage”. I figured that my marriage had hit a rough spot, and I was reading some books on marriage, so I should read this one.

After reading it, I’m kind of torn. I think I can take my review two ways. I can review how well written and how amusing the book might be for the average reader, then I can comment on how useful I thought it was to me.

I’d never heard of Rick and Bubba before. Apparently they’re southern DJs or talk show hosts. They call themselves “The sexiest fat men alive”. I guess somebody has to be. The book is 230 pages and I counted 45 chapters. If you do the math, you end up with fairly short chapters that are easy to read 2-3 at a time in one sitting. That makes it convenient.

I’d say the book is written (or edited) well enough. The content is fairly amusing. It’s about what you’d expect from two men who talk for a living given a contract to write a book about their marriages. I can’t say the content is very helpful for a marriage in trouble. Being written from a man’s perspective, I doubt my wife would read it. It is amusing in most points though, and made me laugh several times. At other times, I have to admit, I groaned as I read cliches and over-repeated jokes and stories that just about every man comes programmed to tell about his wife and assumes are unique. The book has several sidebars, and at the back contains the “Book of Blame”, which one of the authors says he got from his wife’s hope chest. It explains how wives can blame everything on their husbands.

I guess I enjoyed the book well enough. I think the average reader will probably find it amusing and worth the read. It’s definitely not the kind of book that you’ll read or refer to again and again, like “Put Your Dream to the Test”. I doubt it will earn a prominent place on my bookshelf for that reason.

It also comes with a companion CD containing tracks of Rick and Bubba. I have not had a chance to listen to the CD at this point. Below is the Amazon data for the book from my affiliate link (please consider buying it from my affiliation) and a YouTube clip of the authors promoting their book.