500 Great Dates - book discontinued by Hearst - review by ~LaUr3n~

The author is RedBook magazine's Lisa Sussman. You may have also seen her writing in Cosmopolitan. Eden actually carries quite a few of her other books, some of which you may read or seen:

Orgasm: Over 100 Truly Explosive Tips
The 100 Best Foreplay Tips Ever
How to Give a Mind Blowing Blow Job
Redbook's Love Your Sex Life

This book is for anyone! It is written for couples of any relationship length, two weeks or 5 years. It doesn't matter because any relationship deserves fun and sexy variety. The book includes 500 fun, romantic, and or sexy date or activity ideas for you and your partner to do, but this book doesn't have to be for a couple. It could be for a single person that is just going on dates and wants some unique, unforgettable ideas. A lot of these things could even be done with a best friend. So basically, this book can be for anyone.

CHAPTERS:

-Introduction
-Date Expectations
-Dinner and a Movie
-Romantic Dates
-Dating with Children
-Stay at Home Lovers
-Quickie Dates
-Dating Off the Beaten Path
-Outdoor Dates
-Illuminating Dates
-Mini Getaways
-Double Dates
-The Big Dates
-Keep the Date
-Index

The book is very cute and well made. It is slightly petite at 5" wide and 7" tall. The cover says "500 Great Dates - Creative, Fun, and Sexy Ways to Spend Time Together." I don't think this book is anything to be embarrassed about and would be fine being displayed on a book shelf, bathroom, etc. The binding is done well and the book has a cardboard matte cover. There are 215 pages. The pages are thicker stock and are hard to flip through without missing many pages at once.

The font looks to be about 10 point, maybe 9, so it might not be suitable for those with vision problems. My mother is legally blind in one eye and has poor vision in the other. She requires 14 point font for most novels in order to not acquire a migraine from reading. If you are wanting to get this for someone, you might want to keep the smaller font size in mind.

-Introduction: "If you think dating is just for singles, you are short changing your guy, your relationship. and yourself..." This is pretty much the premise of the book.

-Date Expectations: This section starts the book by addressing dating jitters and gives tips on how to avoid dating disasters even if they are with your long term partner. It also goes into how to decide who should be responsible for picking the date and what is good to pick. It breaks down into other mini-sections like the "Your Get it on Dateline". I liked this section because while the tips are sort of common sense, they really work and might not be things you thought of doing. For example, create a date jar. Take a few bucks from your paychecks each week and add it to the jar. When I did this with an ex boyfriend, we always had about $40-$50 bucks at the end of the month to go out and do something nice with. It really paid off since he was the kind of guy that if he had money, he would spend it. Another tip is to pay before the date. If you pay for something like a concert or sporting event ahead of time you are much more likely to go and not back out. The rest of the section includes little tips to make the date more exciting like making sure you don't get ready together to bring back the excitement of seeing each other right before the date. Not all of the tips in this section are for long term couples, however.

-Dinner and a Movie: 92.8% of people in a Redbook poll say that dinner and a movie is their regular date. It's a good fall back when you have nothing else planned. Let's face it. When it comes down to date night, more times than not we go back to comfort. If you happen to do D & M a lot, this section goes over how you can at least spice it up every once in awhile. Changing the location is an easy way to do this. Go to a theater you've never been to or go to a specialty one that serves food and has couches, or even try to find a drive in. Match your date night to your movie selection. If you are seeing a movie that is set on an island, dress in a summer flirty way and go eat seafood. It's these little things that can make the date seem less mundane. Later this section gives tips on how to save money for a D & M date and what movies are good to rent for a night in.

-Romantic Dates: I didn't take much from this section. I found the suggestions to be lame or weak. For example, their list of "Ten Must-Do Dates" is pretty lacking. I sort of breezed through this to the part about saving for romantic dates. Since they can be more expensive, it takes a bit more saving at times. There is also a section that includes some cheap somewhat off the wall romantic dates. For example, got to a department store and take turns trying to build the most romantic gift as a game (no buying required). The end of this chapter goes over some potential date dilemmas like over stuffing yourself at dinner.

Continued...

-Dating with Children: Since I don't have any children, I skimmed this section. It seems very useful, though. There are programs and services available for parents that I had no clue about! Some department stores offer a few hour "kid-watching" so you can shop in peace for a small fee or free of charge! Other tips include planning ahead to create time to go out with each other by enrolling your kids in camp or youth volunteering services to free up some alone time. A really cute part of this chapter is the [ bold| "Family Dates" part. This chapter also has a dilemma section. A common dilemma is not having a sitter. The book offers many tips to finding one.

-Stay at Home Lovers: Are you more of a stay at home couple? No problem! This section goes over various fun things to do together like making a mix tape, cooking, or making your living room into a resort. Okay, yea, this section is a little lame. How much fun can you have at home? My partner and I love to stay in when we don't have anything to do, but our fun isn't forced - that's why it's fun. I didn't take much from this section.

-Quickie Dates: Are you guys a busy couple? This chapter offers quick things you can do together, like choosing a show to watch weekly that has a scheduled time so you always know when it is and schedule around it, give each other early morning massages, or go for late night walks. This section also didn't wow me. It does, however, go into sexual ideas at home too.

-Dating Off the Beaten Path: This chapter explores the fact that when you are first dating, most everything you do is exciting because it is all new and uncharted territory. The author gives a list of date ideas that will help bring back the spark factor and hopefully increase your sex life too! One aspect of an exciting date that will bring you back together and create butterflies is the element of fear. Go to something that will be thrilling! Examples are bungee jumping, Fright Nights, or Trapeze classes. I get the idea that the author is going for, but the examples are lacking. I think better examples would be to do something you are not an expert at like horseback riding, going to a line dancing saloon, dirt car racing, or an auction. The author even suggest a strip club at one point, which I thought was bold for Redbook. Included I this chapter are ideas for getting your man excited for romance, dilemmas, and more quick date ideas.

-Outdoor Dates: We love the outdoors, so this section was a good read. Some the ideas are really cute, like making brown bag lunches on a breezy day to go kite flying. This is the one we did first. We bought five-dollar kites so we didn't care what happened to them and it ended up being a lot of fun. We laughed at each other as our kites nearly collided many times. Another idea was to go on a bird feeding expedition. We did this at a local lake and we ended up attracting more squirrels than birds, but it was a good time. It's the simple stuff! This section includes a lot of cheap dates and dilemmas of course.

-Illuminating Dates: These dates are all about learning and doing together. An example is going to an art exhibition or seminar and then attempting to recreate your favorite piece. Take fencing or rock climbing lessons, check out a special museum exhibit, or take a workshop or class together.

-Mini Getaways: This section talks about going on bigger dates. Examples include going to your home town and visiting your favorite places, going to an all new town, go to a country where you don't know the native language, visit a nudist camp. Most of the chapters include a "Spice it Up" option. I especially liked the ideas for these, well most of them. Spice it up by renting a sexy car for the day, taking on different personas for fun, rent a limo, and wearing sexy clothing underneath your regular attire. The author provides fun links like www.milehighclub.com/flights which unfortunately doesn't work! So this book is outdated a bit. It still made me curious enough to do a google search. I found this site instead: Mile High Flights.

-Double Dates: Of course it is nice to have complete alone time, but there are a lot of fun dates your can do with another couple or when the usual gang is around. organize a tasting night. There are probably plenty in your town or you can create your own by having everyone bring their favorite foreign beer, cheese, wine, pastry, whatever. You can host a theme dinner. These are a favorite of mine. I love to have Murder Mystery Parties. It's fun and cheap. You can buy a new box with most everything you need for around $30. I usually find mine at resale stores for much less. You dress up, get some beer or wine, grub, and have a great time! You don't even have to host one. It's more expensive but mansions and estates often have them around Halloween or even year round.

-The Big Dates: This section discusses the yearly dates like anniversaries, birthdays, holidays etc. How do you make them more exciting, or even what to do if he forgets!

-Keep the Date: This is simply the author's short conclusion.

-Index

So there you have it! This book is really long, too long in my opinion. It has a lot of idea's but a lot could be cut out to make this a faster read. I like the layout, but because it is so long, it makes it difficult to find something quickly. I'd say about half of the book is useful for us and the other is laughable. This book is written for the female audience, but doesn't have to be read by only women. Since it is so cheap, it is still an excellent buy, even if you only get 10 ideas out of it...