Rating: 
Summary: A thorough review of two lives in chaos
Review: This book is an excellent study, and its chief value is in letting you and your mate know that you are traveling a well-worn path and that YOU ARE NOT ALONE. But, yes, it CAN be depressing. Because it is a treatise on UN C O U P L I N G (note the typography on the cover), it does NOT stop at some point halfway. It is MOST depressing for the person being dumped, because it points out that the ball is ALWAYS in the initiator's court (the one who wants to leave). He or she chooses the time and the place and the means of leaving. Anyway, this is not an advice book; it is a book of description -- a description of something that the rejected person might not like hearing but that the initiator will recognize immediately.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent description of the process of ending relationship
Review: This book is an extremely good, very solid and intelligent description of the dynamics and processes involved in the gradual disintegration of a romantic relationship. I am a marriage therapist and find this book to be refreshingly intellegent, atheoretical, nonmoralistic and unbiased analysis of what takes place when estrangement creeps into and overtakes a once- viable connection between lovers. It is a solid, unprejudiced depiction of the process from both partners' points of views, without being tritely subjective. It is very readable, but certainly not simple-minded in its content. Strongly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Good book for understanding some of the process
Review: This book is more objective, anthropological, than the hands-on, cookbook approach of _Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay_. It is well written but denser than most self-help books, and powerfully sad. I would have liked more comparison of the dying relationship with similar-appearing moments in a healthy one, as when she discusses starting a new interest or changing one's appearance as a departure from a relationship; it made me feel like there were so many ways to grow apart without helping me figure out how to tell when I was not. But it's a fascinating perspective from which to listen to the stories of friends in rocky relationships. Therapists will find that aspect fun, and some of their clients may also. A comforting book for those whose parting is a fait accompli.
Rating:
Summary: Free of psychological speculation. At look at "how" not why
Review: This book, so much more useful than the whining and carping of most "exes," does not rely on supposed triangles, nor on genograms, nor on dubious concepts about the subconscious. This is a step-by-step look, tinged with some sadness, at how relationships fall apart. It all starts with a secret
Rating: 
Summary: Biased Negativity
Review: Uncoupling does a good job of describing what went wrong in relationships that have already failed and are unsaveable. As a result, it does not factor in much needed advice about ways to turn marriages around. The initiator (the one who wants out) often lacks the proper support and counseling and rationality to make sense of the dilemna and turn momentum towards saving rather than destroying a marriage. I found the book to be very biased towards a gloom and doom look at relationship problems. This book is like a friend telling you or your partner "you might as well throw in the towel - it was over long ago, and there is no point in trying to save it." Society (and counselors as well as self-help books) needs to work towards providing useful information on how to build families, and not contribute further to their destruction.
Rating:
Summary: Uncoupling explains so much
Review: Uncoupling is NOT self-help, popular press mush. It doesn't tell the reader what to do, doesn't contain quizzes and exercises, and it doesn't imply that people are pathological if their relationships don't work out. Instead, it is an extremely readable sociological study of what can happen as a relationship disintegrates, and why so many relationships do disintegrate. This book offers a very plausible explanation for what I have experienced over the last year as my own relationship disintegrated, leaving me feeling bewildered, sad, without a clue what to do or what to expect. I think it would have been so helpful for me if I had found it sooner, and I might have made better choices and suffered less. I am writing a review to encourage others to read it. I wish I could personally thank Diane Vaughan for this wonderful book.
Rating:
Summary: Demystifying breakups
Review: What can one say about breakups? When you go through the first one, you think you've literally invented this level of pain, that no one else understands what you've been through, that this is a whole new (and extremely horrible) world you've managed to spiral into. Well, guess what, it's not.
I started reading this book going through my first real breakup, and it was almost uncanny how well it demonstrated each of the steps I had gone through, and what I had done to get there, and where I was heading. Indeed, there is something almost pre-programmed about the way we deal with these things, and Vaughn's book proves this quite beautifully.
When I first started burning through these self-help books, I was after something a bit more solid and based on real research. "Uncoupling" definitely fit the bill, and if you are more technically-minded, then this is the book for you.
Sadly, as one other reviewer pointed out, you never get to this book in time. If you're interested in reading it, you're probably on the verge of ending something, or have been the victim of such an end. But if misery loves company, at least you know you're on the -very- trodden path.
Rating: 
Summary: good material, but hard to read
Review: while i really valued the content, while I am struggling through a tough time in my life, my only complaint was that it was not easy to read. Subjects were dragged too long, and I found my self reading sentences several time to get the message. There are not too may books out there on this subject, and I do appreciate the availability of this book.
Rating:
Summary: Illuminating.
Review: Without assigning blame to the "initiator" or the "partner," Vaughan dissects the end of a loving relationship. Her book is as good as it is because she accomplishes this task with a sociologist's honesty and a storyteller's care. If you have fallen out of love with your partner, read this book. You won't feel accused, but you will understand where the two of you stand with one another. It may even help you begin to share your situation with your partner, before doing so becomes too difficult or simply irrelevant.
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