Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Book!
Review: As a pastor, I counsel both single and married people. I find one of the greatest difficulties in relationship is assuming we know what the other is thinking. I have found Ms. Hogan's book to be of great value to creating open and honest communication, and to becoming more aware of one another's likes and dislikes. I highly recommend it to anyone in my congregation who wants to have a deep and committed relationship.
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Summary: Great for those uncomfortable quiet moments
Review: Back when I was knee deep in the dating market, I turned to this book quite often to find new and imaginative conversation topics. Although many of the questions are "common sense" and "normal" in the overall date conversation scheme, I found quite a few questions that I might never have thought of.
Now that I am married and especially in the dead middle of winter when there is little else to do, my husband and I will pick up the book and dig just a little deeper into knowing each other much better.
I highly recommend this to anyone whether they are actively dating or not. If nothing else, it helps to understand yourself better so you can be more decisive in your decision making when it comes to your future mate.
Gayla
www.single-again.net
www.herpesonline.org
www.std-for-dummies.org
Rating: 
Summary: Trivial view of human nature. Complete waste of money.
Review: Buy this book. Read this book. Thoroughly. There are enough questions to spread out over several months, but asking them all the first week might scare your sweetie away! The goal is to get to know the person you're with, not to interrogate them. Take your time, weave them into the conversation. This is a wonderful book for people already in a relationship, but even BETTER if you buy it while you are still single, making that list of qualities you want to find in a partner. I agree with the reviewer who said it helped her map her value system. Some of the best advice given in this book is that in order to attract the type of person you want to be with, you must first BECOME the person you want to be with -- if you want to meet an outdoorsy type, then be an outdoorsy type. Sounds insanely simple, and it is. I am already ordering more copies for my friends.
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Summary: Before you make that next date....
Review: Buy this book. Read this book. Thoroughly. There are enough questions to spread out over several months, but asking them all the first week might scare your sweetie away! The goal is to get to know the person you're with, not to interrogate them. Take your time, weave them into the conversation. This is a wonderful book for people already in a relationship, but even BETTER if you buy it while you are still single, making that list of qualities you want to find in a partner. I agree with the reviewer who said it helped her map her value system. Some of the best advice given in this book is that in order to attract the type of person you want to be with, you must first BECOME the person you want to be with -- if you want to meet an outdoorsy type, then be an outdoorsy type. Sounds insanely simple, and it is. I am already ordering more copies for my friends.
Rating: 
Summary: And You May Ask Yourself...
Review: Communication is a wonderful thing. It is more than just verbal volleying. It is the changing and exchanging of information between two parties. Are you ready for the hard questions? Many people are not. This is why premarital counseling rarely works. If only one person is interested in truth, the integrity of the relationship will likely be woefully unbalanced. Another question is how do you know they've answered truthfully? Like Doggiestyle's Storyteller questions, the Hogans have constructed a series of questions that once answered, will tell you the story of what type of relationship you're really in. The true value in this book is more in how you answer these questions for yourself, rather than how your lover answers theirs.
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Summary: You'll never be at a loss for conversational topics
Review: I used this book to flag questions to ask during my "looking around" phase. Sometimes we would just flip the book open to whatever page came up - and there were always questions to stimulate healthy discussion.
Rating:
Summary: You'll never be at a loss for conversational topics
Review: I used this book to flag questions to ask during my "looking around" phase. Sometimes we would just flip the book open to whatever page came up - and there were always questions to stimulate healthy discussion.
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Summary: Eye Opening and Fun
Review: I've been carrying this book around for two months straight, reading through it with my boyfriend of almost 2 years and discovering things about each other we took for granted. Although some of the questions may not apply because of each individual's preferences and lifestyles, there are many that are thought provoking and eye opening. They focus your mind on the qualities of the other person that matter to you, and help you put together a clearer, more detailed picture of who the other person is. One thing it did for me is it helped me map my value system. This is not the type of book you read once and file away on a bookshelf. As far as the (only) negative review this book received, I found it unreliable, coming from an obviously embittered cynic who thinks every question in the book should apply to her and provoke some kind of Buddhist enlightenment. Perhaps she needs to make a trip to Tibet. For those of us looking for a practical guide to discover more about our potential mates, I highly recommend this book.
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Summary: The "Love Bible"
Review: I've been reading Intellectual Foreplay a lot...and it's amazingly accurate. I'm in a long-distance relationship and since we don't see eachother that often, we've been talking to eachother a lot, and we asked eachother the exact same questions that are in this book. I was stunned when I saw that. It's a really easy-to-read book with tons of deep-going questions that really make you think about relationships. It's not just a book telling you to do this or that, or telling you what's good or bad. It's a book that's open to a lot of thoughts and makes you aware that everyone's different and that there's more than one path to choose from.If there would be something like a "Love Bible", this would be it...trust me.
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Summary: Useful for all types of relationships
Review: Sure, it OUGHT to be second nature, and we really SHOULD be asking most of these questions anyway. That's part of the beauty of this book: the questions are so simple and useful that it seems uneccessary to compile them into a book. However, many of us get caught up in a relationship before we have been able to ask more than just a few questions of our prospective partner, and by that time we are willing to overlook a lot of what we find out later. This book is not only useful for "interviewing" prospective partners. As a tool for getting to know the people in your life better, this book provides questions that help you find commonalities with co-workers, friends, family, activity partners, etc. I found "Intellectual Foreplay" to also be a good way for me to know myself better- to evaluate my own goals and ideals - by asking myself some of the questions Eve Hogan has compiled. Can you live life without this book? Do you already ask a lot of these questionsof people anyway? Sure. But a good book doesn't always rewrite everything we do - hopefully it simply improves it.
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