I <3 my In-laws
Dina Koutas Poch
Reviewed by Ashley Merrill
I
<3 my In-laws is a book one can take both light heartedly as
well as
seriously. This is a book that is set up
to both entertain the reader, as well as to give them tips on how to
survive
their in-laws. I found myself laughing
at some points and thinking of what I just read as something that was
funny,
but not to be actually used when dealing with my in-laws, and at other
parts I
found myself making a mental note to try that specific tactic next time
I saw
my mother in law.
In chapter two, Know Thy Enemy,
Dina Koutas Poch breaks down in-laws into seven categories, some of
which are:
the dead in-law, the drama queen in-law, the scary in-law, and
manipulator
in-law. She proceeds to tell you what
they are like and how you can basically handle them.
What I like best is how Dina switches back
and fourth from simple entertainment in her words, to very wise words. At the end of this book you could walk away
from it feeling light hearted and amused instead of exhausted and
bombarded
with straight up facts on dealing with in-laws.
A perfect example of advice on the
manipulator in-law is “Instead of quietly drowning in the pressurized
tide pool
of guilt, stand your ground. Your in-law
says ‘my other daughter in-law always picks me up at the airport. I never take an airport shuttle.’ You respond
‘so what you’re saying is that I’m a bad daughter in-law?’ If she’s
mad, make
her say it! The emperor has no clothes!”
I grin, I laugh, and I make a mental note. This
is the beauty of the book; No stress, no
frantically writing things down, no feeling like this is a book that
was
assigned by a professor who plans on testing how much you memorized.
As a recently married woman, I got
a kick out of reading this because you got to feel like you weren’t
alone. I thought I was the only one who
had in-laws
who always talked about the negative side of life and acted as though
the world
were about to end, other wise known as ‘The Harbinger of Bad News
In-law’. I thought I was just not being
patient enough
with this particular in-law of mine and would walk out after a visit
feeling as
though a black cloud were hanging over my head.
This book gave some great advice on how to combat some of the
negativity
and force some positive things into the conversation.
Overall, I would highly recommend
this book to anyone who is going to meet their in-laws for the first
time. This way, when you find out
something creepy,
or odd, or just plain annoying about an in-law, you’ll most likely
already have
read something similar in this book, so you won’t feel quite so alone. Also, because of the amazing humor in the
book, meeting your ‘Scary in-law’ won’t be so scary because you will
already
have some tricks up your sleeve to bring to the table! ‘Would you drink
prune
juice on an empty stomach and drive away from a bathroom? And, please
don’t go
to places with your in-law where cell phone service falters. Remember there is safety in numbers. Such as 9-1-1.