Rating: 
Summary: Life after divorce brings an exhilarating message of freedom
Review: What an enlightening book! One assumes that most women feel devastated after divorce; but here Applewhite interviews dozens of women who initiated their own divorces, and records their senses of freedom and accomplishment.
She has taken a difficult approach--weaving the many stories into a coherent whole that makes cogent points, rather than just doing a chapter on each person--and she has managed it masterfully. The book not only makes sense and gives valuable advice, it's fascinating reading. By the end, one feels intimately acquainted with these women, their spouses and the author herself--and, most importantly, with what they learned.
I purchased two copies of "Cutting Loose" for newly divorced friends, and they have thanked me over and over for its exhilarating message.
Rating: 
Summary: Anti-marriage/anti-family/anti-men book
Review: Where this book falls short is in helping to preserve marriages and there is plenty of good reasons to be interested in this. While I agree with many of the social patterns embraced in this book, the conclusions drawn are far from healthy. It takes both partners to engage in an unhealthy relationship and if women find themselves becoming subservient to men in a marriage relationship, the healthy response in dealing with it is to counsel women to learn to enforce healthy boundaries in their marriages.
Unfortunately, the book places blame squarely on men alone, giving women a license for irreconcilable resentment and denying them the opportunity to understand their responsibility and role in a failing relationship. I presume the author's motives in writing this book are to encourage women to abandon their relationships without guilt because men as a whole are just not worth it and as the title suggests, you'd be better off leaving him.
If you want to invest in healthier reading, I recommend Boundaries by Henry Cloud. Even if a marriage is, in fact, irreconcilable, this book discusses in a healthier context, the ways in which women can learn and grow so that a future relationship is far more likely to be a successful one.
A review of the author's background shows that she divorced after an 11 year marriage and is now living her life with her female partner. Her militantly anti-male agenda is pervasive throughout this book, subtly, if not overtly promoting a lesbian lifestyle for any woman who has gone through a divorce. An unhealthy response to a traumatic life situation is by no means a basis for a 'self=help' book. She is a board memeber of a lobbying and advocacy group called "Alternatives to Marriage". Her liberal 'anti-family' activism and liberal political social agenda is the basis for this book. I predict Ms. Applewhite's next book will outline how stemcell research can create sperm banks genetically engineered to eliminate the Y chromosome from existence negating the need for men altogether. If you're a woman going through a divorce or thinking about it and you want to fuel your anger and self-righteousness without regard or interest for personal responsibility or growth, buy this book. You'll stay as screwed up as the author for years to come.
Rating: 
Summary: Arrianrhod's Criticism of BJE's Review
Review: While I haven't read the book, I was offended by Arrianhod's comments about BJE's review of the book. The feminist agenda seems to lend itself well to personal attacks when logic fails. Why is divorce a "good" thing when it frequently leads to more failed marriages that take even less time to fail, Arrianrhod? From the title of the book and the tone these reviews, this sounds like another gender-bashing divisive diatribe and one worth avoiding.
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