Love, Inc.: Dating Apps, the Big White Wedding, and Chasing the Happily Neverafter

by Laurie Essig

The notion of “happily ever after” has been ingrained in many of us since childhood—meet someone, date, have the big white wedding, and enjoy your well-deserved future. But why do we buy into this idea? Is love really all we need?  

 
Author Laurie Essig invites us to flip this concept of romance on its head and see it for what it really is—an ideology that we desperately cling to as a way to cope with the fact that we believe we cannot control or affect the societal, economic, and political structures around us. From climate change to nuclear war, white nationalism to the worship of wealth and conspicuous consumption—as the future becomes seemingly less secure, Americans turn away from the public sphere and find shelter in the private. Essig argues that when we do this, we allow romance to blind us to the real work that needs to be done—building global movements that inspire a change in government policies to address economic and social inequality. 

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology, Relationships

256 pages, Hardcover

Published February 12, 2019

About the author

Laurie Essig teaches sociology at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont. She has written for a variety of publications, including Legal Affairs, Salon, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. She blogs for the Chronicle's Brainstorm blog.

Reviews

[Jacqueline Francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an interesting read! I am fascinated by our cultural obsession with love. Laurie Essig's book breaks it down, historically and factually, and brings us into the modern age with an exploration of dating apps. I really enjoyed reading the historical implications of love, and was thrilled to hear her take on why romance plays such a large role in our lives today. I enjoyed the many facts that she shared and was very glad to have the opportunity to read this book.

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[Vyu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really well written jusy not 4+ stars bc it goes and on and on like ag a certain point you've have added enough quotes from your sources give me your own thoughts instead of a regurgitation but apart from that really eye opening about the whole manufactured mess of this whole thing and how it's deadass all propaganda and kinda sad like damn well researched Like what she said at the end about if I'm a cynic then I am also a romantic like yes

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Я бы поставила 3.5, но по правилам округления... :)

Не очень поняла мотивацию ее путешествий и unit of analysis (сумерки? 50ос? дисней? такое ощущение, что это все только из-за популярности) - мне это не кажется слишком уж репрезентатиыным, но ладно. Возможно, цель книги была показать Love, Inc. на кейсах, а не проанализировать ее холистически.

Социология - круто!

[Danyuhl Mackuh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can get behind the basic thesis that romance is an ideology serving the interests of the ruling class, but the qualitative data provided really does not hold up to academic standards (interviewing twenty people in Celebration, Fl. // counting the demographics of a crowd of one hundred people at Disney World // sightseeing Forks and Seattle)

[bell]

cited for my thesis project

[Shari Chernack · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s not hard to agree that we are all pawns in a world in which love is marketed to us. Still, it’s a bridge too far to posit that love is today’s version of bread and circuses, foisted on us to keep us from - and indeed, keeping us from - solving the world’s intractable problems.

[Alina Yasnaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book that will make you reassess the romantic bullshit you've been fed your entire life (if you live in the West). The entire white-wedding-diamond-ring-princess -prince crap is too capitalistic for my taste as I did not grow up in that mythology, but it was immensely fun to read.