At first glance watching and listening to Steve Harvey you don’t expect relationship words of wisdom from him but in Act Like a Lady, Think like a Man that is exactly what you get. On second glance you are not all that surprised that he thinks the way he does. I have heard Harvey talk about his beloved mom. She seems to have had a tremendous influence on the way he sees life and women. Kudos to his mom.

The full title of this book is Act Like a Lady, Think like a Man: What Men Really Think About Lover, Relations, Intimacy and commitment. Harvey touches each subject with humor and down to earth advice. He had me hooked before I read the book; during a television interview a woman asked what she should do if she offered to pay for dinner and the man accepted. Steve Harvey’s response was a question, “Why did you offer?" Now that makes sense to me.

All too often we women are so busy being independent and proving that we don’t need help and can certainly pay for our own dinner, that we forget to let men be gentlemen. Harvey explained, when a man asks a woman out to dinner he expects to pay for it. I agree, at least for me, that has always been true. Steve Harvey dispenses old-fashioned and sometimes brutally honest advice.

In Chapter 9 “Men Respect Standards--Get Some” Harvey explains the difference in telling your man what you want and “finger wagging--will not tolerate speeches.” He even tells you how to flip the script and say something not so in-you-face-grating, but still get your point across. Chapter 8, “Why Men Cheat” is full of surprises; Mr. Harvey points out that men often cheat simply because they can and because they think they can get away with it. If I were of the male sex, I would not be too happy with Mr. Harvey for that simple explanation, especially when we hear all of the reasons, etc. given when men are found out. Steve Harvey is making it bad for the cheaters and the women who believe the tales they tell. He says, “Dress it up any way you want to, but men don’t view sex the way you women do, plain and simple…Sex can be a purely physical act for us--love has absolutely nothing to do with it.” There is much more in this chapter, but since is a children-friendly site, I will not go into detail. This is not a chapter detailing explicit sex, it is just a very honest view of male/female sexuality.

You may not agree with everything Mr. Harvey says, but you have to give him points for putting his thoughts and beliefs out there. His thoughts and observations on whether or not a man and a woman can really be just friends touched on an issue that will surely make for lively conversation.

Highly recommended.