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Rating: 
Summary: well meant, readable, and missing five core points
Review: I have specialized in providing professional education and therapy to divorced, courting, and re/wedded couples since 1981. I am 66, a stepgrandson, stepson, and ex-stepfather and stepbrother, an invited Board member of the Stepfamily Association of America, a contributing editor to 'Your Stepfamily Online,' and the author of six books on wound-recovery, and high-nurturance relationships and stepfamilies.
"The Family Puzzle" has a number of good things to recommend it - and omits vital information. The authors are stepfamily veterans and human-sevice professionals, not therapists. They provide helpful anecdotes readers can relate to, and a positive can-do philosophy to help in the hard times. The provide useful legal information, and a helpful section on stepkids. However, they omit essential topics vital to every stepfamily:
1) why and how to assess and reduce co-parents' psychological wounds from a low-nurturance childhood (vs. divorce);
2) the origin and impacts of blocked grief in adults and kids, and how to spot and reduce it;
3) co-parent unawareness of five key topics: (a) normal personality formation, composition, and function; (b) keys to high-nurturance families and relationships, (c) effective communication skills, (d) healthy 3-level grief, and (e) stepfamily realities and norms and implications;
4) little effective re/marital and co-parenting help (i.e. courtship coaching, classes, informed counseling, co-parent support groups) available in most communities and the media; and...
5) how these combine to cause typical courting co-parents to commit to the wrong people (partners, stepkids, and ex mates); for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time.
In my experience, these factors will often block the best-intentioned adults from following well-meant re/marital and co-parenting advice, as in this book. Awareness, acceptance, and discussion of these (and related) factors can reduce four of these stressors, make wise re/marital; choices, and help to achieve high-nurturance stepfamilies.
For suggestions on how to choose practical books on remarriage, co-parenting, and stepfamilies, see
http://sfhelp.org/11/choose_bks.htm
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