Want to compare pros and cons of buying vs building a house? You’d need to get much advice on whom to approach, how to tell good house builders from bad ones, what to do in case of scams, builder’s associations to approach, and several more facts. Yet, these authors will only tell you in a long whole page that building a house has the advantage of being made as you want it, while a used one was made according to the previous owner’s tastes. They say that “hopefully” (in their own words) you’ll get a good builder team. And so it’s the rest of the book. “Hopefully” you’ll find a good book on personal finance.

But as for this book, you won’t learn almost anything about personal finance. All you’ll get is a chit-chat talk that you can get from any neighbor, relative, friend, co-worker, etc. I well know that many people have serious communication problems and these simple talks are not so simple for them. If this is your case don’t let these authors take advantage of you and seek a good book. The Dummie’s series on personal finance is a good alternative. If you also want some charismatic and inspirational reading, my recommendation is Andrew Mathews’ books.

There are many scammers out there, self-proclaimed financial advisers. This book’s authors are some of them. I think the most famous of all is Suze Orman. They’ll tell you ton of very interesting stories, but that’s no way to learn about finances. You’d never finish hearing personal stories, yet you’d still need to learn much more. These writers normally focus too much in making their reading fun, actually using a rather juvenile language and these authors’ style is particularly juvenile since they wanted to identify with rather young people; they did it too well. These kind of sloppy authors also spent too much time on encouraging readers to save. The topic on saving is quite simple and lets them fill their books. As important as saving is, it must only take a few pages in book. If you do have a problem with saving, you’d better get a full book on the topic.

The big problem with more effective books on finance is that you’ll have to deal with more math and less entertaining readings, and judging from the many reviews giving 5 and 4 stars here, I realize that this is a big problem for many people who actually prefer to fool around (or areactually terribly ignorant).

The book has several annoying commentaries that I could put off with if it really were useful, but since it isn’t the commentaries just add insult to injury. The authors say, for example, that only like 10% of people around 30 have reached the 5 qualities of adulthood: being financially independent, leaving off their parent’s, being married, having children and a 5th one I don’t remember. The world is full of people with severely unattended children. And the fact that you are wealthy and with a stable job doesn’t imply that you are ready to have children either. I can even say that most middle class and rich parents spend most of their time shopping, watching TV and more personal fun than spending time with their children. And the same applies to being married if you don’t work your relationships. Being realistic by being aware that marriage and children is not for you is more mature that making a conventional family, and being able to deal with the loneliness that come with that is definitively mature.

It’s a shame that two people, supposedly certified in finance, couldn’t make a barely comparable work that what the Dummie’s writer did on personal finance.