Overall Impressions

I think that Your Intercultural Marriage is a good book – for the niche that the author, Marla Alupoaicei, is trying to serve: Christian intercultural couples.  With over half of the pages mentioning Christianity, the Bible, or God, I am obviously not the target audience. Nonetheless, I did enjoy the book, and I found useful material in here that I believe could appeal to anyone. I’d highly recommend the book to any Christian intercultural couple whose faith is a large part of their lives. For the more general intercultural couples, this book would not be among my top selections but it’s worth a pick-up if you see it in your local library, or if you’re comfortable picking and choosing from what’s written to find valuable information for your situation. The first chapter of Your Intercultural Marriage can be downloaded here (pdf).

More Details on Your Intercultural Marriage

The book is broken down into twelve chapters: the first half focuses on general topics of interest to any (Christian) intercultural couple, with topics such as “Surviving (and Enjoying) Your Engagement, Wedding, and Honeymoon” and “Building Strong Verbal and Nonverbal Communication Skills”. The second half of the book discusses more specific concerns that intercultural couples often have: time-orientation, food, finances, children, and so forth.  Each chapter starts and ends with a quote, and is followed by a suggested list of movies to watch (a feature which I fear will date the book in a few years time).

Alupoaicei’s breezy, friendly style of writing – with lots of pointers towards other resources  and questions to consider on your own – gives her book a feeling similar to a well-edited blog. You aren’t going to find any deeply thought-provoking passages here (other than the quoted Biblical ones, perhaps), but you  are going to find plenty of ideas that could lead to an ah-ha moment or a  great discussion with your significant other.

The amount of information presented, while great,  is also the book’s main weakness: with so much research and anecdotes from other sources (such as Romano’s Intercultural Marriage: Promises and Pitfalls) some chapters seem to have little of Alupoaicei’s own analysis, ideas, and self-reflection. However, other chapters, such as “Coming to Terms with Faith and Values” do pull together theoretical research, the author’s personal experience, list of questions, and the like to create a strong – albeit very Christian-oriented – chapter that will guide an intercultural couple through potential issues. I also appreciated the detailed chapter on intercultural marriage in the Bible, which I suspect could be particularly helpful if you have conservative (or bigoted) family members who believe that intercultural or interracial marriage are prohibited by God and/or the Bible.

Bottom line: If you are in the demographic Your Intercultural Marriage targets, I suspect that you’ll find this book pretty valuable.  If you aren’t, the constant discussion of the Bible & Christianity could grate, but if you can look past it, then you’ll find some good information and fun stories of other intercultural couples. I came away satisfied with the amount I got for the time I gave the book.

Giveaway!

If you’d like to be entered into the giveaway contest for Your Intercultural Marriage, just leave a comment here by Friday morning, Eastern Standard -  and include at least one fact or sentence about something intercultural, marriage, or book-related in your life in your comment. (Detailed & unique entries get bonus cool points, but everyone will have an equal chance to win.) I’ll draw the names randomly, and then contact you for shipping information if you win one of the copies of the book.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a free review copy of this book by the publisher.