cover image Retool Your Relationship: Fix the One You're With

Retool Your Relationship: Fix the One You're With

Trina Dolenz, Wiley, $16.95 paper (272p) ISBN 9780470633557

Therapist Dolenz earned her 15 minutes of fame the old-fashioned way: on reality television. Now the resident therapist on VH1's Tool Academy has penned an advice manual for misguided couples hoping to restore balance to a troubled relationship. Dolenz supplies the kind of support many may wish to hear: there's hope for almost any relationship, no matter how much of a "tool" your mate may be. Unfortunately, the premise that one can "fix" a person is a flawed notion; people rarely make seismic shifts of character. Still, the author supplies a series of entertaining exercises and offers a formula for divining the childhood roots of relationship issues, but her assertions on infidelity may be hard for some readers to swallow. "Cheating is an unsustainable situation for both parties. The one who is having the affair has it no better off… [having to] handle the desire, excitement, and pleasure, as well as the uncertainty, defensiveness, and anxiety..." Additionally, Dolenz seems to take a regrettably retro approach to gender relations: while women use sex to exert influence, men use money, because they control the finances. Readers will find this book a diverting book, but as a real approach to relationship problems, impractical. (Aug.)