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The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts Paperback – Dec 1 2009

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• Print length 208 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Moody Publishing
• Publication date Dec 1 2009
• Dimensions 15.24 x 0.99 x 22.86 cm
• ISBN-10 9780802473158
• ISBN-13 978-0802473158
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• ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0802473156
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Moody Publishing; Reprint edition (Dec 1 2009)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 208 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780802473158
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0802473158
• Item weight ‏ : ‎ 272 g
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.24 x 0.99 x 22.86 cm
• #600 in Marriage (Books)
• #4,264 in Parenting & Families (Books)
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About the author

Gary chapman.

Gary Chapman—author, speaker, and counselor—has a passion for people and for helping them form lasting relationships. He is the bestselling author of The 5 Love Languages® series and the director of Marriage and Family Life Consultants, Inc. Gary Travels the world presenting seminars, and his radio programs air on more than 400 stations.

For more information, visit 5lovelanguages.com or connect with Gary on his social platforms:

Twitter @DrGaryChapman

Facebook /5lovelanguages

Instagram /5lovelanguages

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THE 5 LOVE LANGUAGES: The Secret to Love that Lasts [book review]

THE 5 LOVE LANGUAGES: The Secret to Love that Lasts

Gary chapman, [northfield publishing, reprint edition, 208 pages].

A while back, a co-worker told me about the book The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Gary Chapman, Ph.D. Although the book is aimed at couples, she told me it had helped her with her other interpersonal relationships.

I was curious, and eventually picked up the book to learn more. Who wouldn’t want to improve their interactions with people?

I discovered that this book outlines the five main love languages and explains how we each have a particular way of expressing ourselves through these languages.

Learning the love language of your spouse is key to understanding how they receive and express love . However, what I took away from this book is that learning another person’s love language—whether it’s that of your sibling, friend, co-worker or someone else entirely—can help you understand them better and improve your communication with them.

Within the five main love languages, there are also dialects, which are different ways that people express love. When using words of affirmation, for example, a spouse can choose a few different ways of going about it, such as:

• Using requests instead of demands
• Providing encouragement
• Making positive remarks about their partner to others

These three behaviours are all separate dialects within the words of affirmation language.

Here’s a brief summary of all five love languages that Chapman outlines:

Words of affirmation

Words of affirmation are positive words that build people up. As the author explains, affirming words can include anything from making a remark about how nice someone looks to making a list of a person’s admirable traits.

Compliments go a long way towards making people feel validated and encouraged. As Chapman says, “verbal compliments are far greater motivators than nagging words.”

Quality time

Chapman defines quality time as giving another person your undivided attention, doing something the other person enjoys and having quality conversation with that person. He points out that quality conversation is different from words of affirmation, in that quality conversation indicates that you’re listening to the other person, asking questions and taking an interest in what they’re saying.

Receiving gifts

Another love language is receiving gifts. For some people, gifts are important visual symbols of love. As an example, Chapman uses the example of wedding bands. Some people never take their wedding band off, while others have different attitudes towards wedding rings.

The gift of self is another element of gift-giving, and is described as the gift of presence, of physically being there when another person needs you.

Acts of service

For others, acts of service (cooking a meal, cleaning, taking out the garbage, paying the bills and so on) demonstrate thoughtfulness, consideration and love.

Chapman tells an interesting story of a couple in which both individuals spoke through their acts of service. Unfortunately, they used vastly different dialects and had experienced extremely different upbringings, which led to arguments and misunderstandings. This story illustrates the idea that different actions will mean different things to each individual.

Physical touch

Physical touch is a primary love language for some people, and if they don’t receive it, they feel unloved. Chapman points out that there are many different forms of physical touch, and that something like a hug may mean more to a person in times of crisis than comforting words. For those people, physical touch is their emotional lifeline.

[su_panel background=”#fdf0c6″ color=”#000000″ border=”0px none #ffffff” shadow=”0px 0px 0px #ffffff”]

Discovering your own love language

According to Chapman, what wounds you most deeply will often give you insight into the type of love language you speak. For instance, if you often seek encouragement or compliments, and feel hurt if you don’t receive them, your primary love language is likely words of affirmation.

If you think about what you ask of other people and what you do to regularly express love to others, you can identify your love language in this way, too.

Another helpful activity Chapman suggests is writing down what you think your primary love language is and listing the other four by their level of importance. He also suggests that you write down the love language(s) of your significant other and spend some time speaking to them about it.

By examining your own actions and those of others, you can more fully understand the love languages of all the important people in your life. Don’t get discouraged if you feel unsure or confused when it comes to pinpointing your own love language, though. Chapman explains that some people are ‘bilingual’ and find more than one love language important.

Expressing love in different languages

In the end, we always have the choice to love. Chapman asserts that each and every day, we can make the choice to speak someone else’s love language.

[su_pullquote align=”right”]When an action doesn’t come naturally to you, it’s even more meaningful, because you do it out of love.[/su_pullquote]

For some people, expressing a certain person’s primary love language may not come naturally. You might not be a touchy-feely person or someone who likes doing chores. However, Chapman reminds the reader that we do many things that don’t come naturally to us—like getting out of bed in the morning. He adds that when an action doesn’t come naturally to you, it’s even more meaningful, because you do it out of love. It often means the world to the other person, too.

Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages espouses the principles that most of us have been taught about effective communication throughout our lives: listening, understanding and negotiating. The author shows us that love is essential and makes us feel secure. With love, we can do anything!

«RELATED READ»  BIG LOVE: The Power of Living with a Wide-Open Heart [book review]»

[su_panel background=”#f2f2f2″ color=”#000000″ border=”0px none #ffffff” shadow=”0px 0px 0px #ffffff”] Angela Ward is a communications professional and writer with an interest in personal development, mindful living and environmental protection. You can find her on Twitter .

image 1: Pixabay ; image 2: Pixabay

Nice review. Have you had a look at the work of John Gottman, which we found even more helpful?

You have shared something creative & never heard before. Your choose point love in a different language review is made my day. Keep doing & keep sharing.

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“The 5 Love Languages” - Book Review

“ The 5 Love Languages” by Gary Chapman is a book that was published in 1992 and has continued to become even more popular over time.

This book teaches that each one of us interprets love differently. Each of us needs to feel loved, but the actions we associate with love are different (our love language). As a result it is easy for two different people to believe that they are showing love to each other, but at the same time not feel like they are receiving love from each other. For example if you feel that a hug is a great expression of love and your spouse feels like doing the dishes is a great expression of love then it is easy for both of you to misinterpret what your spouse is doing. They are doing the dishes to show they love you but you just think that is housework. You are giving them hugs, but they feel that is almost unimportant and if you really loved them you would help with the dishes. As a result we need to learn our spouse’s love language so we can effectively communicate our love to them.

Chapman categorizes the wide variety of different ways each of us feel love into 5 groups or love languages: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. The book devotes a chapter to each one of these languages.

Chapman goes on to discuss how important it is to love our spouse in their love language. In order to so we first we need to figure out what their love language is. This may be harder than it sounds especially if our spouse doesn’t even know (or at least may not recognize it as such). The book outlines various tools and exercises to help with this discovery. Once we understand what our spouse’s love language is then we need to learn to become fluent in that language. For example if we aren’t someone who naturally likes to buy and give gifts, but that is our spouse’s love language, then it is going to take some effort on our part to become comfortable and good at doing so.

We may think something like “My spouse should just accept me for who I am. They know that I don’t like spending money on gifts, I show my love in other ways.” The problem with this is that love is hard work, if we just do what is easy for us, that isn’t really love. How we really show love is by being willing to put in effort for our spouses benefit.

As the book says “[R]eal love... is emotional in nature but not obsessional. It is a love that unites reason and emotion. It involves an act of the will and requires discipline, and it recognizes the need for personal growth. Our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not instinct. I need to be loved by someone who chooses to love me, who sees in me something worth loving. That kind of love requires effort and discipline. It is the choice to expend energy in an effort to benefit the other person, knowing that if his or her life is enriched by your effort, you too will find a sense of satisfaction—the satisfaction of having genuinely loved another.”

Along with all the really good points this book makes we felt there were at least two places that people may misinterpret what is being taught and maybe larger warnings could have been added.

First. People love personality tests, and our love language is very similar to a type of personality test. This type of classifying ourselves can help us feel like we belong, better understand ourselves, and make it easier to explain ourselves to others. The danger with this is that once we categorize ourselves we can easily convince ourselves that that is who we really are. “I am someone who loves the color green.” So when we see two beautiful dresses we just decide that the green one is prettier because “that is who we are”. This can limit what we are willing to try and who we are willing to be in the future. People are massively multifaceted and unique, none of us fit into nice little buckets that completely explain who we are. As a result use this book to better understand who you currently are but don’t let it confine who you can be in the future.

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Second. This book talks a lot about our emotional “love tank” and that we can fill our spouse’s love tank by loving them in their love language. We think this is a great metaphor in a lot of ways but beware of the temptation to use this as an excuse. “I can’t love my spouse until they are doing more to fill my love tank or because my love tank is empty”. This excuse leaves a relationship stuck, neither person willing to be the first to make repairs to the relationship. (Note that the last chapter speaks specifically about this.)

Overall this was an excellent book and we highly recommend it. We think it works well to read by yourself, and we think it works even better if you read it with your spouse. If you are willing to put in the effort to improve your relationship we think this book can be an excellent guide for your journey.

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Thousands of Amazon Reviewers Claim 'The 5 Love Languages' Book Helped Save Their Marriage

Is this the best relationship book of all time?

We've been independently researching and testing products for over 120 years. If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Learn more about our review process.

Full disclosure: This book was first published in 1995, so it’s not exactly new. In fact, it's been on the New York Times Best Seller list since 2009. But even after nearly 25 years, people are still singing its praises, saying that Chapman’s advice is as relevant as ever. In fact, nearly 74,000 people have given it an average rating of 4.8 on Amazon.

Moody Publishing The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts

Chapman’s belief is simple: In our relationships, we all speak a different love language. Some people place more value on words of encouragement or quality time, while others crave acts of service and physical touch. The key to a happy, long lasting, and easy marriage, he says, is pinpointing each partner’s love language and learning to speak it yourself.

Makes sense.

Want to find out your own love language? Just answer a series of questions on Chapman’s website . From there, the book offers questions, discussions, and activities so that you and your partner can better understand each other.

Obviously, presenting your partner with a "self help" book can get tricky, especially if one of you doesn't exactly feel like your relationship needs saving, but it's worth the potentially tough conversation, according to at least one reviewer :

"My husband bought this, and at first I was offended. I didn't think anything was wrong with us and I took it as kind of a personal attack. However, we started reading it together and it has just strengthened our marriage. It has helped me realize that we are two different people at the core, so what works for me isn’t what best works for him and vise versa. I would recommend to anybody in a relationship that wants it to be long lasting!"

Another reviewer says it's worth the read, even if you’re single:

“I truly believe everyone could benefit from reading this book, even if you aren't in a relationship! I have learned so much about myself and it has made my relationship so much stronger, I wish I would have bought it sooner.”

The bottom line: At just $8, there’s no harm in giving Chapman’s advice a shot. You (and your partner) may end up being pleasantly surprised.

Lindsey works with the Good Housekeeping Institute to test and review products including appliances, bedding, baby items, pet products and more.

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The 5 Love Languages Summary

1-Sentence-Summary: The 5 Love Languages shows couples how to make their love last by learning to recognize the unique way their partner feels love.

Favorite quote from the author:

Table of Contents

Video Summary

The 5 love languages review, audio summary, who would i recommend the 5 love languages summary to.

Anyone who has experienced romantic love can tell you that falling in love is easy. The hard part, especially in today’s world, is staying in love . So many couples drift apart. Distractions , conflicts, miscommunications , and boredom can get in the way of what was once a magical relationship. Staying in love takes work. Relationships need careful and attentive nurturing.

In The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts , we learn the remedy for all problems modern couples face. Dr. Gary Chapman is a marriage counselor who has found a proven method for making love last. He has given 15 million people improved relationships by teaching them their love languages, and he will help you identify yours.

Here are 3 of the most lovely lessons from this book:

• As your relationship matures, communication is key.
• There are 5 different ways people give and show love.
• Identify your and your partner’s love language to deepen intimacy.

Are you ready to learn how to grow closer to the people you love most? Let’s learn how!

If you want to save this summary for later, download the free PDF and read it whenever you want.

Lesson 1: As your relationship changes, communication will make it last.

Falling in love is amazing. There’s blushing, butterflies, flirting, and infatuation. We see the world through rose-colored glasses that can blur even our best judgment. As unromantic as it may sound, it’s driven by the instinctual drive to continue our species.

After around two years, however, those relationships based purely on romance will deteriorate. Reality creeps in, and couples start to have to work to meet each other’s emotional needs .

How do we make sure that we meet these necessities? Cultivate a relationship that allows for open and honest communication. As the excitement of new romance fades, we need to make sure that we can understand each other.

The best way to communicate as love matures is to find your companion’s love language.

Just like talking to someone who speaks an unfamiliar language, effectively communicating with your partner when you don’t speak the same love language is hard. The next lesson introduces us to the five different love languages to help you understand your significant other on a deeper, more intimate level.

Lesson 2: The five love languages are the different ways in which we express that we love someone.

Most languages have ways beyond words to express yourself. The same goes for love: There are different ways to show it. Here are five Chapman describes:

• Words of Affirmation . Words of praise and encouragement are a powerful way to share love for someone. To speak this language, you give verbal compliments often. Make sure they know you love their smile, their sense of humor, or that new outfit.
• Quality Time . Work and busy lives can get in the way of this love language all too easily. We can be in the same room as our partner and still fail to actually ‘be’ with them because of our electronics. The key to quality time is undivided attention. It can either be quality conversations or quality activities with your partner, like date night.
• Gift Giving . For some, gifts are a physical symbol of how their partner feels about them. Remember that it doesn’t matter how much it costs; it’s just the act of going out and getting or making a gift for your partner that will show them how you feel about them.
• Acts of Service . This is helping your partner with the things with which you know they would appreciate help. It can be things like helping the kids with homework, doing bills, or vacuuming, and will be different for everyone.
• Physical Touch . Even in infancy, humans need physical touch to thrive. We often forget, but this carries on into adulthood as well. Some ways you can express love in this way are holding hands, cuddling, kissing, or sex . Of course, find out what kinds of physical contact they like most, and this will deepen your intimacy.

Remember: There are many ways to show someone you love them . Be sure to use them all!

Lesson 3: To be closer with your significant other, learn each other’s love languages.

Now that you know the five love languages, you can figure out what your primary language is. Then, with the help of your partner, discover what theirs is.

Pinpointing your own is pretty easy: ask yourself what you most often request from your partner. Maybe you have been asking for help with the laundry or asking your partner if you both can put the kids to bed a little earlier so you can spend time together.

It can also help to think of what has made you feel most loved and appreciated in the past, whether it was a physical gesture, a gift, or a compliment.

Once you figure out what you enjoy, it’s time to find your pain points. Hurtful relationship experiences from your past can guide you to your love language. Think of times your emotional needs went unmet, or you were disappointed in a relationship.

It’s helpful to think of family relationships in childhood, because these shape the way we are as adults. If these experiences fall into the same category as a love language, like disappointing gifts, or a lack of time spent with you, then that is probably your love language.

After discovering your language, share it with your partner. Help them discover theirs. Once you both understand each other’s primary language, it will be much easier to meet each other’s needs.

You can help your partner feel more loved, appreciated, and understood the way it means most to them. Best of all, you can communicate to them how much you love them, and this will be the groundwork for building a fulfilling relationship that lasts.

The 5 Love Languages is essential for anyone who is in a serious relationship or ever plans to be in one. It will help couples understand each other better by teaching them how to find what their love language is. By explaining the love languages, it serves as a guide so couples can communicate better and build a relationship that lasts.

Listen to the audio of this summary with a free reading.fm account:

The 40-year-old married couple who feels that their love is waning, the 26-year-old newlyweds who are wanting to set solid ground for their marriage, and anyone in a relationship or considering one.

Last Updated on August 16, 2022

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With over 450 summaries that he contributed to Four Minute Books, first as a part-time writer, then as our full-time Managing Editor until late 2021, Luke is our second-most prolific writer. He's also a professional, licensed engineer, working in the solar industry. Next to his day job, he also runs Goal Engineering, a website dedicated to achieving your goals with a unique, 4-4-4 system. Luke is also a husband, father, 75 Hard finisher, and lover of the outdoors. He lives in Utah with his wife and 3 kids.

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The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts Paperback – 1 Jan. 2010

Marriage should be based on love, right? But does it seem as though you and your spouse are speaking two different languages? New York Times bestselling author Dr. Gary Chapman guides couples in identifying, understanding, and speaking their spouse’s primary love language—quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, or physical touch.

By learning the five love languages, you and your spouse will discover your unique love languages and learn practical steps in truly loving each other. Chapters are categorized by love language for easy reference, and each one ends with specific, simple steps to express a specific language to your spouse and guide your marriage in the right direction. A newly designed love languages assessment will help you understand and strengthen your relationship. You can build a lasting, loving marriage together. Gary Chapman hosts a nationally syndicated daily radio program called A Love Language Minute that can be heard on more than 150 radio stations as well as the weekly syndicated program Building Relationships with Gary Chapman , which can both be heard on fivelovelanguages.com. The Five Love Languages is a consistent new York Times bestseller - with over 5 million copies sold and translated into 38 languages.  This book is a sales phenomenon, with each year outselling the prior for 16 years running!

Includes a promotional code to gain exclusive online access to the new comprehensive love languages assessment.  

• ISBN-10 9780802473158
• ISBN-13 978-0802473158
• Edition Reprint
• Publisher Moody Publishers
• Publication date 1 Jan. 2010
• Language English
• Dimensions 15.24 x 0.99 x 22.86 cm
• Print length 201 pages
• See all details

Product description

About the author.

Married more than 45 years to Karolyn, Dr. Gary Chapman is just the man to turn to for help on improving or healing our most important relationships. His own life experiences, plus over thirty-five years of pastoring and marriage counseling, led him to publish his first book in the Love Language series, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate . Millions of readers credit this continual New York Times bestseller with saving their marriages by showing them simple and practical ways to communicate their love to their partner.

Since the success of his first book, Dr. Chapman has expanded his Five Love Languages series to specifically reach out to teens, singles, men, and children.

He is the author of numerous other books published by Moody Publishers/Northfield Publishing, including , Anger, The Family You’ve Always Wanted, The Marriage You’ve Always Wanted, Desperate Marriages, God Speaks Your Love Language (Jan 09), Parenting Your Adult Child , and Hope for the Separated . He co-authored The Five Languages of Apology with Dr. Jennifer Thomas.

Chapman speaks to thousands of couples nationwide through his weekend marriage conferences. He hosts a nationally syndicated radio program, Love Language Minute , and a Saturday morning program, Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman , that air on more than 100 stations. Dr. Chapman also serves as senior associate pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Dr. Chapman holds BA and MA degrees in anthropology from Wheaton College and Wake Forest University, respectively, MRE and PhD degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and has completed postgraduate work at the University of North Carolina and Duke University. Dr. Chapman and his wife have two adult children and two grandchildren, and currently live in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Product details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0802473156
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Moody Publishers; Reprint edition (1 Jan. 2010)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 201 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780802473158
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0802473158
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.24 x 0.99 x 22.86 cm
• 1,193 in Marriage Relationships
• 1,228 in Marriage
• 4,303 in Languages

About the author

Gary chapman.

Gary Chapman—author, speaker, and counselor—has a passion for people and for helping them form lasting relationships. He is the bestselling author of The 5 Love Languages® series and the director of Marriage and Family Life Consultants, Inc. Gary Travels the world presenting seminars, and his radio programs air on more than 400 stations.

For more information, visit 5lovelanguages.com or connect with Gary on his social platforms:

Twitter @DrGaryChapman

Facebook /5lovelanguages

Instagram /5lovelanguages

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Customers find the book insightful, easy to read, and comprehend. They also say it's a brilliant author and a useful tool to better relationships. Customers also mention the book is in excellent condition with clean pages.

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Customers find the book insightful, useful, and easy to read. They say it helps them understand each other better. They also appreciate the interactive tool on the 5 Languages website. Customers also mention that the book talks about real issues on marriage and is refreshing.

"...It has really opened my eyes. There is a great little on line interactive tool on the 5 Languages website which is fun to use and helps you to..." Read more

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What the 5 love languages get right, and what they get very wrong

Don’t think of love as a language. Experts say to think of love as a balanced diet instead.

by Constance Grady

As Meyers-Briggs quizzes are to corporate bonding retreats, love languages are to Hinge profiles. They show up again and again on dating sites, and on relationship advice forums and social media memes and debunking podcasts. There is something about the idea of love languages that seems to make people feel very passionately: My love language is words of affirmation. My love language is clean sheets. My boyfriend says he doesn’t have a love language, and I don’t know how to express my love to him. Love languages are bull crap. My love language is hating on love languages .

These agents of provocation emerged from the mind of Baptist pastor Gary Chapman, author of the 1992 book The 5 Love Languages . Chapman developed his theory of love languages while he was offering pastoral care to couples who came to his church looking for support in their marriages. As Chapman sees it, the reason married people fight is that they are each trying to express their love in ways the other person doesn’t understand. It is as if, he explains, they are speaking different languages.

Chapman’s initial modest offering has developed into a full-fledged media universe: The 5 Love Languages of Children , The 5 Love Languages Singles Edition , The 5 Love Languages for Men , The 5 Love Languages of Teenagers , The 5 Love Languages Military Edition . There is an app . There are Chapman-hosted podcasts .

The basic premise of the Chapman universe, however, has a pleasing Hogwarts house-style simplicity. Chapman cataloged five love languages, which he says are all the same for everybody: quality time, physical touch, receiving gifts, acts of service, and words of affirmation. You get one love language as your primary and another as your secondary, like being on the cusp in astrology. You aren’t allowed to have more than that. Ideally, you and your partner should have at least one in common. To pick your language, you take the personality quiz at the back of the book, now available online .

For true believers, the love languages are the key to relationship communication. Say one person feels loved when they’re cuddling (physical touch), while their partner considers cleaning the house (acts of service) to be the ultimate expression of their affection. Both of them might feel as though they’re putting in all the work for the relationship and as though the other person is neglecting them. Chapman’s love language concept gives both parties a way of talking about what they’re missing from one another without accusations.

Critics, however, point to Chapman’s rigid and conservative gender politics (most prominent in the earliest editions of the book) and the lack of scientific basis for his theories. Love languages, they warn, can be too inflexible to be practical.

“If someone identifies their primary love language as ‘gifts,’ they might unconsciously downplay the significance of spending quality time, being physically affectionate, engaging in deep conversations, and so on,” says Gideon Park, a co-author of a recent psychology paper examining the academic research on love languages. “This could create a narrow understanding of what constitutes love, hindering the richness and diversity of emotional connections.”

In the name of richness and diversity, let’s take a close look at the concept of love languages. Here’s what they get right, and what they get very wrong.

The scientific research into love languages is mixed at best

The paper Park worked on under lead author Emily Impett lays out three foundational tenets of The 5 Love Languages , which the researchers then checked against existing relationship science research. The three tenets are the basis of Chapman’s argument: There are exactly five love languages, everyone has exactly one primary love language, and when you match languages with your partner, you’re happier. According to the literature review from Impett et al., there does not seem to be empirical evidence for any of these three principles.

The paper finds few consistent results between studies about how people experience love. Still, when researchers ask people about what makes them feel loved, the reasons they list don’t necessarily have to do with ideas like “words of affirmation” or “acts of service.” One study in 2013 found that their subjects listed acts that sorted themselves into categories of sacrificial, intimate, quality time, supportive, and comforting love. Another study in 2010 found that subjects thought it was important when their partners made an effort to get to know their friends and talked about the best ways to deal with fights.

Impett et al. argue that it’s a losing battle to try to fit the way people love into preexisting categories. “A more comprehensive understanding of how people communicate love,” they write, “would require a bottom-up approach.” A good researcher would let people tell them what they thought love languages looked like, rather than imposing their own categories on their subjects.

When researchers do work with Chapman’s five categories, they tend to find that people aren’t willing to confine themselves to one primary love language. When people are asked to rate the importance of each love language on a scale of 1 to 5, they tend to give all 4s and 5s. If you try to force their hand by designing a test that makes them choose one, the same person will end up with a different answer depending on how you administer the test.

Finally, researchers consistently find that there’s no correlation between matching love languages with your partner and reporting higher relationship satisfaction. It simply doesn’t seem to matter whether you and your partner are native speakers of the same love language.

What does seem to matter is whether you and your partners are willing to learn each other’s languages. Two different studies have found that when you perceive your partner as speaking your love language well, your relationship satisfaction goes up. Although Impett et al. critique the methodology of those studies, they seem to point to a pretty basic conclusion: If you and your partner have thought about how to express affection for one another, and you do it on a regular basis, you’re likely to be pretty happy. Used well, Chapman’s love languages can be an effective tool for getting there.

Chapman’s gender and sexual politics are pretty worrisome

Chapman has never claimed that the love languages are based on any kind of scientifically rigorous process. They have always been an impressionistic tool that comes from the observations he made during his time as a pastor, counseling couples at his Baptist church in North Carolina in the ’80s and ’90s. That’s a specific political and cultural context, and it informs the way the theory of the love languages developed.

In the 1992 edition of The 5 Love Languages , Chapman is explicit about the demographics of the couples he worked with. They are white, heterosexual, conservative Christian couples. The book is structured under the assumption that the wife will stay at home and care for the house and children while the husband goes to work to provide for her. It is a thoroughly heterosexual, monogamous book that chooses not to acknowledge the existence of queer people, to say nothing of poly or trans people.

As the debunking podcast If Books Could Kill laid out in April 2023, most of the couple fights Chapman uses as examples tend to involve wives nagging their husbands to take care of chores. In one case, Chapman explains to a henpecked husband that while he thinks the best way to express love is through sex (physical touch), his wife only experiences love if he helps her with vacuuming (acts of service). If the husband would just help out with vacuuming once in a while, Chapman goes on, the wife will feel just as loved as the husband does when they have sex. The idea that the wife might be interested in sex but can’t focus on it while never-ending housework piles up all around her is not one Chapman engages with.

The most infamous of these examples comes with the case study of Ann, who goes to Chapman for guidance in dealing with her husband’s cruelty. “Is it possible to love someone you hate?” she asks Chapman. In response, he gives her Bible passages about loving one’s enemies and tells her that her husband’s love language is probably physical touch. In order to save the marriage, he advises her, she should stop all complaints about her husband and start initiating sex at least twice a week.

Ann tells Chapman that sex with her husband is difficult for her because she feels so estranged from her husband. When they’re intimate, she says, she feels “used rather than loved.” Lots of women feel this way, Chapman tells her. Her Christian faith will help her through it. Ann does as Chapman tells her to, and the marriage is saved.

In later editions, Chapman revised this case study. ( He told the Washington Post that “physical abuse today is far more evident and apparent than it was when I wrote the book.”) In the new version, Chapman tells Ann to be more physically affectionate with her husband — ruffle his hair, kiss him on the cheek — and perhaps consider working her way up to initiating sex when their relationship has recovered some.

The new advice is less blatantly misogynistic than the advice of the first edition, but both contain the same underlying logic: If a woman’s husband is emotionally abusive toward her, it is her responsibility to coddle him and mollify him until he decides to treat her better. In real life, however, the only person who can control the behavior of an abuser is the abuser themselves.

Some of this ideology has made its way into the structure of the love language model. In their paper, Impett et al. note that some studies associate high relationship satisfaction with high respect for each other’s autonomy and personal goals outside of the relationship. Such egalitarian goals do not appear anywhere in Chapman’s models.

Instead of the love languages, consider aiming for a love diet

The love languages might be a flawed concept, but they speak deeply to thousands of people. Partly, that’s because people love a personality quiz, and the love languages come with one. But Chapman also had a key insight that he was able to express with the straightforward and intuitive metaphor of different languages: The way that you express and experience love might be different from the way your partner expresses and experiences love . That’s a valuable idea.

“If I had to pick one reason why I think many couples find Chapman’s book to be helpful,” says Park, “it is not because they learned their own or their partner’s love language but because it gets people to identify any currently unmet needs in their relationship and opens up lines of communication to address those needs.”

Still, the research suggests that adhering rigidly to the love language model won’t serve you well over time, in large part because it doesn’t match how human relationships work. We love in many ways, not just one.

“It is very likely that in one situation, someone might need a certain type of love or support,” says Park. “Perhaps after losing out on a promotion, you just need your partner to listen and provide you with words of affirmation. Maybe on an anniversary dinner, affection makes you feel special. Or during a particularly stressful time at work, having a partner take on extra household tasks is the best way to support you.”

In their paper, Impett et al. suggest replacing the metaphor of the love languages with a new one: the love diet.

“People should make sure they have a nutritionally balanced relationship,” they argue.

Under this metaphor, choosing one primary love language is something like a crash diet where you eat nothing but fruit, even though your body also needs carbs and fats and proteins to survive. For Impett et al., healthy relationships should prioritize quality time and physical touch, compliments and presents and helping each other out, plus all the other categories of love that don’t fit into Chapman’s model. “If they feel that something is missing,” the paper continues, “they could discuss that imbalance (unmet need) with their partner.”

Gary Chapman’s five love languages taught a lot of people how to start talking about their needs. It might be time for the conversation to evolve — perhaps over dinner.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts by Gary Chapman

Pages:  203

Ideal Reader:  Couples (dating, engaged, married) who wish to enhance or improve their romantic/intimate relationship.  Applicable to all couples regardless of length of relationship, sexual orientation, or relationship makeup.

Ideal Issues Addressed:

• Disconnected from partner
• Spark is gone in the relationship
• Feeling like you and your partner are roomates
• Feeling unloved and unsure why partner says they don’t feel loved.
• Premarital counseling – learn how you and your partner give and receive love best.

Summary:  

One of the central ideas of this book is that love is a choice.  We choose to love others and how we express our love. This choice to love is especially important when the “in love” feeling many of us feel at the beginning of a relationship fades and our emotional need for love requires our partner to make a choice to fill our “Love Tank.”  Chapman explains there are five primary ways that people express and receive love in order to meet the emotional love needs of others and ourselves. Chapman describes these as love languages and uses a language metaphor throughout the book. These languages can be found within all cultures, though appropriate expression varies by culture and couple.  These five love languages include words of affirmation, receiving gifts, acts of service, physical touch, and quality time. Chapman dedicates one chapter to each of the five love languages, where he explains each one in detail. He uses personal reflections and example to benefit the reader’s understanding of the concepts. Each chapter also includes suggestions on how to learn to speak your partner’s primary love language.  Subsequent chapters discuss specific issues in which speaking our partner’s love language may be helpful. He also includes a frequently asked questions section and an assessment to help figure out your own love language profile at the end of the book. This book is a quick and easy read, written for couples or anyone within a relationship in order for them to learn and use this information without the requirement of outside assistance (ex:  therapists). Some chapters also have discussion or thinking points at the end related to the chapter which allows the reader to apply the information to their own life and engage their partner in a discussion.  While the books is meant to help your relationship without the aid of a third party, this can be difficult work to attempt alone. If you feel more help is required, please reach out to a couples therapist who can help you make the relationship stronger.  YOu are not a failure if you need to reach out, consider it an expression of love when doing so.

How it can Help:

• Learn five ways to express love to others
• Find out your own and your partner’s love language.
• Discussion questions for each chapter guide a discussion between you and your partner, allowing for re-connection before practicing the information in the book.
• Exercises and tips available to help you get started in speaking each other’s love language and strengthening the love in your relationship.
• Provides guidelines for love and marriage (non-intentionally).

Therapist’s Reflections:

This is a book I had sitting on my bookshelf for much longer than I’d like to admit.  I’d been putting it off to favor of reading other books that would enhance my therapeutic practice.  It wasn’t until I had several couples come in, and I found myself recommending this book and its ideas in session that I finally buckled down and read it.  I was surprised at how informative it was, while still being a quick and easy read; always a plus for books when you recommend them to clients. Not only did it explain the concepts in easy to ready terms, it also provided tips and exercises to help enhance learning and speaking your partner’s love language.  Some of the concepts seem cheesy or silly, but I really do feel they are useful. The information in this book has become a staple in my work with couples and had even bled into my work with families and individuals as well. I commonly start with talking about the five love languages with couples as I feel if partners feel more loved by each other, it will make discussions of even harder topics more manageable.  When people feel more loved, they are less likely to be defensive, be more open minded, more forgiving, and better able to come to an understanding. Also, we all have a need to feel loved, and it is within intimate relationships that we find the greatest potential for this love need to be fulfilled.

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The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts Paperback – 1 January 2015

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• Part of series The 5 Love Languages Series
• Print length 256 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Moody Publishers
• Publication date 1 January 2015
• Dimensions 13.97 x 1.07 x 21.59 cm
• ISBN-10 080241270X
• ISBN-13 978-0802412706
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About the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Moody Publishers; Reprint edition (1 January 2015)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 080241270X
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0802412706
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 kg 50 g
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.97 x 1.07 x 21.59 cm
• Country of Origin ‏ : ‎ India
• #2,398 in Christianity (Books)
• #3,496 in Family & Relationships

About the author

Gary chapman.

Gary Chapman—author, speaker, and counselor—has a passion for people and for helping them form lasting relationships. He is the bestselling author of The 5 Love Languages® series and the director of Marriage and Family Life Consultants, Inc. Gary Travels the world presenting seminars, and his radio programs air on more than 400 stations.

For more information, visit 5lovelanguages.com or connect with Gary on his social platforms:

Twitter @DrGaryChapman

Facebook /5lovelanguages

Instagram /5lovelanguages

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Customers find the book beautifully explained and helpful in understanding relationships. They also say the ideas are good and need to be applied as per the book. Readers also describe the book as a must read and nice.

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Customers find the book value to be great. They say it's a must-read for couples and parents. They also mention that it'll provide quality time and gifts.

" Definitely worth reading nd important to understand while nurturing any relationship." Read more

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Project Life Mastery

Gary Chapman – The 5 Love Languages Book Review

I just finished reading the book The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman and it was a fantastic book for singles, those in relationships, and especially those who are married.  I heard so much about the book from friends and it wasn't until I was in an airport and saw it on a shelf that I decided to read it.  Another motive for reading the book was because I have recently entered into a new relationship with a girl and thought it'd be useful to read a book on love.

Gary Chapman reveals that there are 5 Love Languages, or 5 ways for us to communicate love to one another, which is different for everybody.  It's important for you to figure out exactly what it takes for YOU to be loved, as well as what it takes for your LOVED ONES to be loved.  The mistake that many people make is that they assume that their partner has the same love language as them, which isn't true.  And whenever you don't feel loved in a relationship, or your “love tank is empty” as Gary Chapman says, the relationship is in danger.

Let me reveal to you the 5 Love Languages below so that you can better understand things:

1) Words of Affirmation

Some people feel most loved when they receive words of affirmation from their loved ones.  It may be being told “I love you”, or being praised, complimented, appreciated, supported, or encouraged.  Essentially, having affirming words will make you feel loved if this is your primary love language.

2) Quality Time

For some people, words of affirmation aren't it… they'll complain that “They say they love me, but they don't spend any quality time with me!”  If this is your case, then quality time may be your love language.  This can be someone listening to you, doing things with you, sharing experiences, looking into the other persons eyes, etc…  It's important for this person to be fully present and with you when they're spending time with you, so watching TV while your partner is talking to you doesn't count and isn't giving them your full attention.

3) Receiving Gifts

Receiving gifts may be your primary love language if you feel most loved when someone buys you gifts, whether it be small or big.  This may show you that this person really cares and you really appreciate anything that is given to you.  It could be receiving flowers, chocolates, cards, notes, etc… any gesture that is a gift will make you feel loved.

4) Acts of Service

Some complain that they want you to SHOW THEM that you love them, not tell them.  “Talk is cheap”, as the saying goes.  These people need acts of service, which is when others do things for them.  Someone with acts of service as their primary love language will feel most loved when someone cleans the house, does the dishes, laundry, cooks, helps them with projects or tasks, etc…  When someone does something for them, they feel loved.

5) Physical Touch

Lastly, physical touch may be your primary love language if you require physical affection to be loved.  It could be holding hands, being kissed, hugging, brief touches, or even sex.

Which Is Your Primary Love Language?

As mentioned earlier, we all have a primary love language.  While you may say, “All are important to me” , there is one that is the most dominant and vital for you to be loved consistently.  I had a difficult time with this, but after fully going through the book and doing their love language profile in the book and on their website, I am absolutely clear on what mine is.  The order of my love languages are:

1) Words of Affirmation 2) Physical Touch 3) Quality Time 4) Receiving Gifts 5) Acts of Service

If you want to find out what your love language is, I recommend you fill out the free love language profile on their website by clicking here .  I've had my girlfriend do it, and even friends and family members – it's extremely useful.

Your Love Tank

Gary Chapman often talks about when your “love tank” is empty, that's when a relationship is most in danger.  When you don't feel loved, it's the scariest thing on earth and you will often withdraw from your partner and won't be focused on loving them very much.  Gary shares countless examples in the book of marriages that are turned around simply by discovering their partners love language and focusing on making their partner feel loved.  Even partners that are mean-spirited, abusive and ignoring their partner have totally turned around simply by having their love tank filled up by their partner.  It's really remarkable to learn the power of this.

A good question to ask yourself, and your partner regularly is:

On a scale from 1-10, how full is your love tank right now?

Whatever the answer is, you want to make sure you focus on making your partner feel more loved by you.  One of my favourite beliefs about relationships is that a relationship is a place you go to GIVE, not to GET – and it's so true.  If you're focused on meeting your partners needs, you will have a love slave.

Overall, this was a remarkable book and I'm so happy that I read it, as my relationship with my parents, friends, and girlfriend has improved because of it.  I've told my parents and people in my life what my love language is and now I constantly feel more loved – it's amazing!

To check out The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman on Amazon.com, click here .

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What Are the 5 Types of Love Languages?

• Types of Love Languages

The 5 Love Languages

• Your Partner's Love Language

Knowing the type of love language you and your partner use can help foster a deeper connection. Love is one of the deepest emotions you can experience as a human—especially when that love is for another person. However, giving and receiving love can be a complicated exchange, particularly if you and your partner express love differently.

Giving and receiving love in the ways that best speak to you and your partner can enhance feelings of love and being loved. Learn more about the five types of love languages, how to know which ones resonate most for you and your partner, and how to bridge love language differences in your relationship.

The 5 Types of Love Languages

To help people navigate this phenomenon, Gary Chapman, PhD, a well-known author, speaker, and marriage counselor, developed the idea of the Five Love Languages. Based on years of clinical practice, Chapman suggests that a person experiences love in five distinct ways:

• Quality time
• Acts of service
• Words of affirmation
• Receiving gifts
• Physical touch

When people do not speak the same love language as their partner—or they give or receive love differently—Chapman says they can experience relational challenges and ultimately feel unloved. That can be resolved by learning to speak your partner's love language—which can help your relationship grow, your love deepen, and your communication improve.

Design by Health

According to Chapman, all five love languages have a place in a relationship, but each person has a primary love language that makes them feel loved. Additionally, learning to speak your partner's love language—as well as sharing your own—can help strengthen your relationship, reduce misunderstandings, and lead to more happiness and relationship satisfaction.

Words of Affirmation

If your partner's love language is words of affirmation, they likely want to be appreciated, valued, and even treasured. But the way this is done is important. People with this love language often prefer a soft tone, kind words, and humble requests.

Another way to use words of affirmation is to compliment your partner in front of friends, family, or coworkers. Your loved one may feel more loved because you are expressing admiration for them in front of others.

You can also show love by encouraging them and pointing out what they do well or what you appreciate about them—especially out of the blue. You can also send uplifting quotes, write love notes, create a thoughtful card, or create fun text messages. Your positive and kind words can go a long way in making them feel loved and connected to you.

Quality Time

The love language of quality time revolves around giving your partner your undivided attention and creating a sense of togetherness. During your time together, it is important to focus your attention on each other and not have interruptions from your phone, social media, work, or children.

Another way to experience this love language is to set aside time for a quality conversation. Ideally, you will both have time to share your thoughts, feelings, and desires, which is crucial for feeling loved.

Quality time can also involve doing something together, like going for a walk, participating in a fun activity, or having dinner together. The key is to focus on one another and pay attention to what the other is thinking, feeling, and saying.

Physical Touch

While physical touch is often an integral part of any relationship, for people who see this as their primary love language it is a powerful way to communicate. Showing love to your partner in this way can involve hugging, holding hands, giving a massage, kissing, and being sexually intimate .

Even cuddling close on the couch, touching their arm, or playfully bumping them with your shoulder can communicate love. The key, though, is discovering what type of physical touch your partner wants. It is very possible that they may not want to be touched in certain ways.

You also never want to pressure your partner into physical touch they are not interested in. Instead, ask what they like and dislike or what they prefer when it comes to touch. Some people may appreciate holding hands in public or kissing goodbye, while it might make others uncomfortable. You want to ensure you have your partner's consent before touching them in any way.

Receiving Gifts

Gift-giving has always been intertwined in relationships, but for some people, the simple act of receiving a gift can communicate love in a number of ways. When you give someone a gift, you are not only investing in the relationship but also demonstrating that you know them on a deeper level.

Of course, picking out a gift is not always easy—and if it is not your strength, it can cause some distress . But gifts do not have to cost money or take an enormous amount of time. Instead, something as simple as picking a few wildflowers can be a great gift, especially if the flowers have some significance for your partner.

Also, experts indicate that the entire gift-giving process—from the fact that you thought about the person to the careful choosing of a gift—can cause strong feelings of affection. Gift-giving also communicates a level of selflessness and appreciation.

Acts of Service

If your partner's love language is acts of service, they likely appreciate it and feel loved when you do things for them. From relieving them of a responsibility to offering to do something helpful, showing love through acts of service means doing things that you know they would appreciate or need help with.

Offering to do things for your partner—or even doing something without being asked—shows that you are thinking about them and that you want to make their life better. It also demonstrates a level of unselfishness, especially when you put their needs above your own.

The key is to do things with a positive attitude. Doing so communicates love because these acts convey you are thinking about your partner.

What Is Your and Your Partner's Love Language?

The basic premise behind the five love languages is to treat your partner in a way that communicates love to them—or fills their "love tank," as Chapman calls it. This may mean learning to communicate in a way that feels foreign to you—especially if the two of you have different love languages. But by learning to love your partner in meaningful ways, you will likely reduce frustration and increase your connection and intimacy.

One way to discover your love language is to take The Love Language Quiz , designed to pinpoint your primary love language. Your partner can take it too so they and you can find out how they best love.

If your partner is not receptive to taking a love language quiz, you can ask them questions to try to determine how they receive love. For instance, ask your partner, "What would an ideal partner be like?" Then, listen to how they describe this person.

If they mention cuddling on the couch while watching a good movie, this might signify a love language of physical touch. If they say taking long walks together, this might indicate their love language is quality time. If they say they like getting little notes on their car or getting a random text telling them how much they mean to someone, that could indicate words of affirmation is their love language.

Of course, you may need to ask more questions to narrow down their love language. But remember, your goal is to find out what is important to them. In the end, their answers often point to their love language. Even if you are still uncertain, at the very least, you have learned more about your partner.

Benefits of Understanding Love Languages

When you or your partner's emotional need for love is not met, you may experience more conflict, withdraw romantically, and even fall out of love. If the need is met, you are both better equipped to deal with differences as well as feel loved and fulfilled.

The number of studies supporting these claims is limited but still promising. Here are some of the potential benefits of understanding and utilizing the concept of love languages.

Creates Intimacy

One of the hallmarks of using the five love languages is discovering what love means to your partner. Not only can regularly talking keep your emotional need for love met, but it can also build intimacy in your relationship because you are learning to communicate better and connect in more significant ways.

Improves Self-Regulation

Implementing the love language concept in your relationship requires you to stop and consider your partner's needs first. To do this, you have to learn to manage your emotions and feelings. Research indicates that managing your emotions and feelings on a regular basis can help you improve your self-regulation skills. In the end, you may also find that you are happier and have more relationship satisfaction.

Strengthens Communication

Consistency and open communication are important parts of the five love languages. Understanding and using the languages can help build and strengthen your communication. It also helps you learn to communicate love to your partner. And even when your attempts hit a snag, there is still the opportunity to talk about it and find out more about each other.

Boosts Relationship Satisfaction

When you are trying to use your partner's love language to communicate how you feel about them and let them know they are loved, they are more likely to feel happier in the relationship. But using your partner's love language can help you, too. For instance, research shows that helping your partner get their needs met produces a greater emotional benefit for you than you would get from having your own needs met.

Promotes Empathy

Anytime you want to try to understand where your partner is coming from, doing so with empathy can help. Using the five love languages is no different. You need to use both emotional empathy (concern) and cognitive empathy (perspective taking) to fully understand what your partner needs.

Consequently, using the love languages concept in your relationship requires you and your partner to develop this skill. In the end, not only can you both learn to be more empathetic and loving, but research indicates that you may also be more satisfied with your relationship.

A Quick Review

The five love languages are words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, receiving gifts, and acts of service. Gary Chapman, PhD, created the concept to summarize the different ways people communicate love.

Learning and using your partner's preferred love language can lead to greater happiness and satisfaction. When you recognize that your partner is trying to communicate with your preferred love language, you will also likely have increased feelings of love and satisfaction in the relationship.

You can find out your and your partner's love language by taking an online quiz. You can also ask yourself or your partner questions about what an ideal partner might look like and what makes you or them feel loved. Once you know what their love language is, it's simply a matter of implementing it.

Bland AM, McQueen KS. The distribution of Chapman’s love languages in couples: An exploratory cluster analysis .  Couple Family Psychol . 2018;7(2):103-126. doi:10.1037/cfp0000102

Hughes JL, Camden AA. Using chapman’s five love languages theory to predict love and relationship satisfaction .  PsiChiJournal . 2020;25(3):234-244. doi:10.24839/2325-7342.JN25.3.234

National Domestic Violence Hotline, love is respect.  Applying the 5 Love Languages to healthy relationships .

South University. The psychology behind gift giving .

Mostova O, Stolarski M, Matthews G. I love the way you love me: Responding to partner's love language preferences boosts satisfaction in romantic heterosexual couples .  PLoS One . 2022;17(6):e0269429. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0269429

Kardan-Souraki M, Hamzehgardeshi Z, Asadpour I, Mohammadpour RA, Khani S.  A review of marital intimacy-enhancing interventions among married individuals .  Glob J Health Sci . 2016;8(8):74-93. doi:10.5539/gjhs.v8n8p74

Bunt S, Hazelwood ZJ.  Walking the walk, talking the talk: Love languages, self-regulation, and relationship satisfaction .  Pers Relationship.  2017;24(2):280-290. doi:10.1111/pere.12182

Cramer D, Jowett S. Perceived empathy, accurate empathy and relationship satisfaction in heterosexual couples .  Journal of Social and Personal Relationships . 2010;27(3):327-349. doi:10.1177/0265407509348384

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Fans Of 'It Ends With Us' Will Love The New Film, But There Is Something Missing

Guest Writer

The credits to “It Ends With Us,” the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel, have just started to roll as my friend and I excuse ourselves to move past the two groups of women in our aisle.

One is made up of four young friends, and the other is a pair of women who are older than me but probably not as old as my mom would be if she was still alive. Both groups are still in their plush, leather, reclining chairs, snuggled under the blankets they brought from home. It’s as if each is at home having just turned the last page of a book, letting the emotion settle over them, not ready to return from a fictional world to the real one.

The all-female audience is like me; they left behind bedtimes for children or partners or pets to go out after work for a special, early preview of protagonist Lily Bloom’s (Blake Lively) emotional story from the novel. Presumably, they are fans of Hoover’s book, and the entire experience feels like the equivalent of staying up too late to turn another page.

But, instead of being alone in bed with the thrill of reading one more chapter, we’re all here together to see how the pages we’ve already read and posted about online and texted the group chat about are being brought to life through the “It Ends With Us” film adaptation, which hits theaters Friday. Christy Hall wrote the screenplay, and Justin Baldoni serves as director and stars as Ryle Kincaid.

Overall, the movie closely follows the plot of the viral BookTok sensation. On the evening of her father’s funeral, Lily Bloom meets neurosurgeon Ryle on the rooftop deck of his apartment complex. Lily is sitting on the edge, gazing out, when Ryle explodes through the door. Enraged, he takes out his aggression on one of the patio chairs. When he sees Lily and realizes that he’s not alone, he calms down, pulls out a joint, and the two share a conversation and an almost-kiss before Lily leaves, planning to never see him again. Months later, Lily unknowingly hires Ryle’s sister, Allysa (Jenny Slate), to work with her in her new flower shop.

Like the book, the movie flashes back-and-forth between Lily in high school (Isabela Ferrer) and Lily in present day. Young Lily falls in love with Atlas, a high school student experiencing homelessness (Alex Neustaedter) while grappling with the trauma of her father’s physical abuse of her mother. Older Lily falls in love with Ryle, reconnects with adult Atlas, and eventually, after Ryle becomes physically abusive, struggles to free herself from the cycle of domestic violence that shaped her traumatic childhood.

At its surface, “It Ends With Us,” captures the visceral essence of Hoover’s book. The strength of the adaptation in this regard was intentional. Early on in the process, a group of fans were brought in to read a draft of the script and ensure that the movie did the book justice . And, for fans of the book, it probably does. But I also left the theater wondering if the exclusion of a key scene or two undermines the impact of the film.

“Is it because it’s been a while since I read the book or was that the most faithful adaptation of a book I’ve ever seen?” my friend asks me as we walk out of the theater.

“I think it was,” I reply, reaching for my popcorn bag and leftover M&M’s.

As my friend drives us home, we begin to unpack the movie, moving past our initial reactions — “it was so good,” “Blake Lively was incredible,” “Brandon Sklenar made a good Atlas.” We also discuss arguably the biggest difference between the book and the movie — the viewpoint. In the novel, Lily’s story is told in the first-person point of view. The reader is inside Lily’s head, experiencing the sweet, small moments when she falls in love for the first time with Atlas as a teen, and the lust and momentum of her intoxicating relationship with Ryle.

In the movie, the narrative is told in the third-person point of view. But it doesn’t feel that way, and this is largely due to the reimagining of the plot and the withholding of information that the book frontloads. In that first rooftop scene in the book, Lily reveals that her dad physically abused her mom. In the movie, she doesn’t. Instead, she calls herself an unreliable narrator and that abuse is shown through flashbacks that impacts her emotional processing of the present.

Unlike the book — which makes Ryle’s abuse clear from the beginning — the movie makes the lines Ryle crosses intentionally blurry. This is clear in the first violent incident when Ryle hits Lily’s face because she laughs when he burns a dish in the oven (a moment based on an incident of real-life abuse between Hoover’s dad and mom). When Ryle pulls the casserole out, he forgets to use an oven mitt, jerking his arm back, elbowing Lily in the eye.

The cinematography is disorienting and a little fuzzy, the camera too close and the movements too fast for a viewer to get a good read on the situation, to know if Ryle’s contact with Lily’s face is intentional or accidental. Lily doesn’t know either. Or, maybe, in her gut, she knows it is intentional, but she is falling in love with Ryle and doesn’t want it to be true, doesn’t want to be in a relationship that resembles the one between her mother and father.

Maybe she tells herself it was an accident. It will never happen again.

Ryle’s gaslighting in the aftermath of Lily’s black eye — “we” made a mess — makes even the viewer question what is true. In this way, the movie captures Lily’s circular thinking and rationalization, using cinematography to explore how abuse can make people feel like an unreliable narrator.

As my friend and I drive farther away from the theater, we agree that we like those changes. They are effective. The beginning and middle of the movie works. It’s the climax that we’re questioning: There’s a change at that pivotal moment when Lily decides to ask Atlas for help and leave Ryle that has been nagging at me since the movie ended.

“Cycles exist because they are excruciating to break. It takes an astronomical amount of pain and courage to disrupt a familiar pattern. Sometimes it seems easier to just keep running the same familiar circles, rather than facing the fear of jumping and possibly not landing on your feet. My mother went through it. I went through it,” Lily narrates in the book.

While the movie allows the viewer to feel as disoriented as Lily does about the abuse, it fails to show how she breaks this cycle once she accepts it is a cycle that needs to be broken. The viewer sees the act of violence that becomes her final straw, but we don’t get to hear the conversations that take place with Atlas when she asks for help, and eventually Ryle when she begins the process of leaving him. We get a snippet of the support Allysa offers as a best friend, but we only get montages of resiliency to fill in the blanks of Lily rebuilding her life.

Hoover says in her Author’s Note that she has historically written books to entertain, not to educate, persuade or inform. But she acknowledges that “It Ends with Us” is different.

“I wanted to write something realistic to the situation my mother was in — a situation a lot of women find themselves in,” Hoover writes, saying the book was the most grueling thing she’s ever written. “I wanted to explore the love between Lily and Ryle so that I would feel what my mother felt when she had to make the decision to leave my father.”

As my friend pulls into our neighborhood, I think about those women in the theater. I think about how most — if not all — of them read the book. Most of them, like me, had background information from the novel to fill in the blanks, to contextualize the montages, to give meaning to a woman leaving an abusive marriage, and the hard conversations and firm boundaries that decision necessitated.

But the movie doesn’t do this — it bypasses the hard realities of Lily’s bravery — and the women who are going to fill theaters across the country this weekend deserve more. In a world in which intimate partner violence impacts an estimated 12 million people a year, and 1 in 4 women over the age of 18 have been the victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner, it is imperative for cultural depictions like this to provide hope and also proof that it is possible to escape that cycle.

A common criticism of the novel is that it glamorizes abuse. While I think that claim hinges on interpretation, I do believe the movie is more at risk for this critique to ring true because of the uneven, rushed pacing at the end. Because the film spends less time on how Lily leaves and more time on how she falls in love, the depiction is unbalanced.

However, while all of these interpretations are possible, I don’t think that the movie makes abuse sexy or exciting. If anything, it shows how complicated cycles of abuse are, and how rationalization and gaslighting make women feel like they can neither be the protagonist of their own life nor tell someone their own story.

After my friend has dropped me off, and I’ve walked inside and chatted with my husband, he goes to bed, but I’m still awake. I’m thinking about my friend’s original question — “Is it because it’s been a while since I read the book or was that the most faithful adaptation of a book I’ve ever seen?”

Like everything in life when you really think about it, the answer falls somewhere in the middle. Yes, the movie captures the essence of Hoover’s story in a way that few book-to-film adaptations accomplish, and I walked out of the theater feeling the same way I did after I closed the book and set it on my bedside table.

But did it also miss some of the complexity Hoover brings to the ending and reinforces in her Author’s Note? Yes.

Do I think fans of the book will care? Probably not.

Does it matter? Absolutely. Women deserve to see the full range of a complex experience that they or a loved one could encounter.

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"What would you say if your daughter told you her boyfriend pushed her down the stairs but it's okay because really it was just an accident?" Questions like this are at the heart of "It Ends with Us,” based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Colleen Hoover . This is a message picture about what it takes to break the vicious cycle of domestic violence. It is not subtle. 

After the emotional turmoil of her estranged father's funeral in Maine, our heroine, the impeccably fashionable Lily Bloom ( Blake Lively , the best clotheshorse movie star since Kay Francis), breaks into a rooftop to peer at the vast beauty of Boston's skyline. Before she can do much introspection, she meets the impossibly handsome and impossibly named Ryle Kincaid ( Justin Baldoni , also the film's director), a neurosurgeon (naturally). Baldoni comes barreling into the scene like a hurricane, hurling a pair of steel chairs across the rooftop in anger. Instead of repulsion from this violent act, Lily finds herself intrigued and drawn to his charm and megawatt smile. Their playful patter, peppered with barbs veiled as flirtation from Ryle, ramps up until the dashing surgeon is summoned back to the hospital by his beeper. 

This is of course not the last we see of Ryle. He just happens to be the brother of Allysa ( Jenny Slate ), the quirky rich and bored housewife Lily hires to help her run the Cottagecore florist shop of her dreams. Although Lily repeatedly insists that she just wants to be friends, Ryle pursues her, ignoring her many pleas just as flagrantly as she ignores all his red flags. Lust is a hell of a drug. 

Quickly, Ryle's negs and flirtatious barbs ramp up, transforming into toxic jealousy and other forms of obsessive behavior. This includes inviting himself to dinner with her mother by dropping the L-word for the first time, one of several such instances of emotional manipulation he brandishes like a silver-tipped dagger. Before she knows it, Lily is not only in a relationship she didn't really want, she herself becomes an outlet for Ryle's raging temper. 

The early scenes of Lily and Ryle's volatile courtship are interwoven with scenes in which teenage Lily ( Isabela Ferrer ) falls in love for the first time with a schoolmate named Atlas ( Alex Neustaedter ). The soulful boy is squatting in the abandoned house across the street from hers, fleeing his mother’s abusive boyfriend. The generous and nonjudgmental Lily offers both aid and friendship when Atlas needs it the most. He in turn offers her a caring shoulder and a safe place to finally express the fear she feels as she watches her father physically abuse her own mother over and over again. 

These scenes are innocent and tender, the two young actors imbuing the teenagers with just the right balance of world weariness from the violence they’ve already endured and the irrepressible hope that comes with youth. Yet, Baldoni and his team of editors ( Oona Flaherty and Robb Sullivan ) can't quite find the right balance between these scenes and the more erotic and violent scenes featuring Baldoni and Lively. However, once Brandon Sklenar (doing his best Harry Connick, Jr. in " Hope Floats ") enters as the grown-up Atlas, he is able to craft an effortless, natural chemistry with Lively that is nearly as strong as these early moments, although they both are far too fleeting. 

This story of love, trauma and abuse is wrapped up in the same amber-hued autumnal glow of Lively’s bestie Taylor Swift ’s short film for her autobiographical song "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)," which itself is about an abusive relationship. Lily even has the same tousled strawberry blonde tresses as the short film's star Sadie Sink . So naturally, the film's most climatic moment of domestic abuse, like the short, takes place in the couple's kitchen. Later, the moment where Lily comes into her own power as she attempts to rebuild her life is underscored by Swift's "My Tears Ricochet" (which perhaps counts as a spoiler if you know the topic of the song. Swifties, I'm sorry.)

"It Ends with Us" is a fine-looking picture. Baldoni and cinematographer Barry Peterson know how to frame movie star faces in flattering medium close-ups, allowing every nuanced emotion, every twinkle in their eyes to transport the viewers on this emotional journey with them, even when the characters feel more like didactic cyphers than fully-realized human beings. Lily’s flower shop (which never seems to have any customers) is a Pinterest board brought to life. And Lively’s designer duds are nearly as showstopping as the ones she sports in “ A Simple Favor .”

Lively does her best to add emotional layers to Lily so we see her internal growth, but this process is often hampered by the film around her. I kept thinking of " Alice, Darling ,” Mary Nighy's incredible film about intimate partner violence from a few years back in which Anna Kendrick finds herself suffocating in a psychologically abusive relationship. In that film, Kendrick's character is given a full life and a group of friends who help her overcome the codependent trap she's been caged in. Here, the few women in Lily's life – her so-called best friend Allysa and her mother Jenny ( Amy Morton ) – are underdeveloped, relegated to a handful of scenes that largely exist as plot points.  

The PG-13 rating keeps the violence Ryle inflicts on Lily, or her father's violence in the flashbacks, to a minimum visually (and often seen in slow motion or in choppy montages), Christy Hall ’s script unfortunately often falls into "as the father of daughters" territory, giving more care to explaining why these men are the way they are (especially in Ryle's case, in the film's most cringe-worthy twist) than it does to the psychology – let alone the economics – of why women often stay with abusive partners. Instead, this subject, which should really be the key to the whole story, is covered in one very short scene between Lily and her mother. The forced love triangle once Atlas re-enters Lily's adult life also restricts things, causing Lily's life to once again orbit mostly around the men in it. 

"It Ends with Us" is certainly not a bad film. At times, it's actually quite good and its central message is crafted with intention and care. I just wish it had a sharper focus on Lily's interiority, her life beyond her trauma, and who she really is in relation to herself, and herself alone.

Marya E. Gates

Marya E. Gates is a freelance film and culture writer based in Los Angeles and Chicago. She studied Comparative Literature at U.C. Berkeley, and also has an overpriced and underused MFA in Film Production. Other bylines include Moviefone, The Playlist, Crooked Marquee, Nerdist, and Vulture. 

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It Ends with Us (2024)

Rated PG-13

131 minutes

Blake Lively as Lily Bloom

Justin Baldoni as Ryle Kincaid

Brandon Sklenar as Atlas Corrigan

Jenny Slate as Allysa

Hasan Minhaj as Marshall

• Justin Baldoni
• Christy Hall

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It Ends with Us

Adapted from the Colleen Hoover novel, Lily overcomes a traumatic childhood to embark on a new life. A chance meeting with a neurosurgeon sparks a connection but Lily begins to see sides of ... Read all Adapted from the Colleen Hoover novel, Lily overcomes a traumatic childhood to embark on a new life. A chance meeting with a neurosurgeon sparks a connection but Lily begins to see sides of him that remind her of her parents' relationship. Adapted from the Colleen Hoover novel, Lily overcomes a traumatic childhood to embark on a new life. A chance meeting with a neurosurgeon sparks a connection but Lily begins to see sides of him that remind her of her parents' relationship.

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• Trivia The casting of Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni as Lily and Ryle caused backlash from fans because in the book Lily is 23 and Ryle is 30, while Lively is 35 and Baldoni is 39. Author of the book Colleen Hoover explained in an interview that she wanted to age the characters up in the movie in an effort to correct a mistake she made in the book. She said, "Back when I wrote It Ends With Us, the new adult [genre] was very popular. You were writing college-age characters. That's what I was contracted to do. I made Lily very young. I didn't know that neurosurgeons went to school for 50 years. There's not a 20-something neurosurgeon. As I started making this movie, I'm like, 'We need to age them out, because I messed up.' So, that's my fault."
• Connections Featured in The Project: Episode dated 6 August 2024 (2024)
• Soundtracks Start Me Up Written by August Wisbon Performed by DJ Roc Courtesy of Crucial Music Corporation

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