Healthy Relationships

Healthy Relationships by Rachael Chapman is an extensive guide on how to build and sustain strong relationships. The book falls specifically into the nonfiction relationship genre, with an emphasis on romantic relationships and couples’ conflicts. Books in this genre typically break down common conflicts experienced in relationships, then explain how the reader might overcome these issues. Chapman and other authors of the genre use exercises, anecdotes, and activities to identify and provide advice for responding to tension in relationships.

This book is more informal than some others of its genre, reading as more of a conversation between author and reader. Chapman achieves this by addressing the reader with “you” pronouns and even groups herself in with the reader, often using “we” and “us” pronouns. Chapman also uses movie and other pop culture references in her writing to make the advice fun to read, making this book more accessible than some of the more formal or science-based books in the self-help genre. There are also several grammatical errors in the book that are clearly unintentional, like, "If they avoids eye contact" or "Talk about the time you two dating."  While these errors- likely a result of copyediting oversights- sometimes took me out of the book's messages, they are infrequent enough to ignore.

The book is organized in a series of segments structured to be easy to read and understand, like articles in a magazine. Chapman uses question/answer formats, problem/solution formats, “to do and not to do” formats, “how to” formats, as well as exercises and activities throughout the book. We can see both the structured format and informal writing style Chapman uses in excerpts like, “Three fun activities for couples to stay stronger as ever… what better way to have fun than with some fun activities with your partner that will keep your #relationshipgoals worthy of a social media post. Interested? Let’s begin!” This unambiguous, simple format makes for an easy read; however, this simple tone can also make the written advice come off as a bit shallow at times.

Although it is almost encyclopedic in its content, covering everything from infidelity to empathy, it isn’t exactly all-inclusive. Chapman writes about relationships from a relatively heteronormative perspective and, whether intentionally or not, reinforces many gendered stereotypes of marriages between a man and a woman (like women being in the domestic sphere and men being more likely to commit infidelity). This also takes some value away from the advice she gives and makes it seem less applicable to all relationships.

Despite some of its flaws, people who feel there is room for improvement in their romantic relationships or feel confused about the issues they are having in these relationships could gain a lot of insight from this book. It isn’t perfect, but it is a rather exhaustive guide to issues people experience in relationships, and the advice Chapman gives could help a lot of readers experiencing conflict in their relationships.