Advice From the Blender: What to Know Before You Blend so Nobody Gets Creamed Review

Divorce rates in the United States are quite high, with more than half of all marriages ending in relatively short time. Divorce among second marriages is even worse, and the rate is elevated even higher still when kids are involved. One book that offers advice on how to successfully combine two families into one is Advice From the Blender: What to Know so Nobody Gets Creamed, a family guide written by Susan Hetrick.

Book Commentary:

Advice From the Blender is a book about the art of getting along in a new household environment when couples with kids decide to remarry. The author of this book has plenty of experience with blending a family, since both she and her current husband were previously divorced and had kids of their own before they met.  

Divorce and remarriage are stressful on everyone, but kids have an exceptionally difficult time. They often have trouble adjusting to a new parent and new stepbrothers and stepsisters. Some kids become depressed and withdrawn; others feel a sense of resentment with the new arrangement because they feel they now have to compete for attention. Advice from the Blender attempts to offer advice and general suggestions for making this transition as smooth as possible.

Much of the advice provided in this book is based on examples from real people, and these examples are included throughout the book. Different people are quoted at length, expressing their own experiences with a blended family and what they did to make the situation work. Parents speak about their own unique experiences and sometimes, children chime in with a few words of their own. These examples of actual people with real problems in family blending are offered to show how a specific challenge was faced and how the family learned from the experience.

Aside from the examples, Advice From the Blender also offers its own commentary on the subject of family blending, with general advice on what works and what doesn't. Each chapter includes a summarized list of important points, followed by a list of questions for reflection and discussion. Most of the advice is pretty common- sense, with a few key points that some blended families might find useful. The advice is all acceptable for the most part, but I should caution that the author blends religion into her advice throughout the book. She doesn't overdose on religion when she gives advice, but she does include it in many of her solutions to problems. Appendix B is, in fact, a collection of Bible verses that relate to blending families.

Bottom Line Viewpoint:

Overall, Advice From the Blender is a good book about combining families, working out differences, seeking common ground, and striving for harmony. It isn't the greatest book I have read on the subject of family togetherness, but it is a respectable effort from the author. Learning to get along in a newly blended family is a challenge and finding ways to mesh children from different backgrounds together into a cohesive unit takes time and patience. This book offers some tips on how best to cope during this stressful, yet often positively challenging experience.