'Cupidity: 50 Stupid Things People Do for Love' by Hayley and Michael DiMarco - Book Review

With Valentine’s Day rapidly approaching, my mind is (even more than usual!) focusing on love and marriage.  I have the great joy of reading and reviewing a fun book called ‘Cupidity: 50 Stupid Things People Do for Love’ by the husband and wife team, Michael and Hayley DiMarco  They are the perpetrators (and I used that word intentionally!) of the Babble of the Sexes website, which the DiMarcos describe as “A scattered conversation of a spiritual and/or humorous nature about life, love, and books.”  It is laugh out loud funny!

Here’s the description of this charming couple from the back cover of the book:

Michael and Hayley DiMarco are the visionaries behind Hungry Planet, a company intensely focused on feeding the world’s appetite for truth by producing books and new media, taking on issues of faith and life with a distinctively modern voice.

Plus they have a daughter - Addison.  Wow – these are busy people!

In addition to the nine books that he has authored or co-authored, Michael also created the Hungry Planet Bible Project, a 10,000 mile extreme road trip recording the faces and voices of the hungry and homeless reading the Bible aloud while raising money and awareness toward their plight. 

Sounds like a great idea; that will make a great book - and even a movie, perhaps!

In ‘Cupidity,’ Hayley and Michael identify 50 of the most common acts of Cupidity, ways to avoid them and learn from them, and what God has to say about relationships. 

The book is divided into 5 sections:

1. Emotional Acts of Cupidity
2. Mental (Gender-Specific) Acts of Cupidity
3. Physical Acts of Cupidity
4. Social Acts of Cupidity
5. Spiritual Acts of Cupidity

Cupidity # 1 is ‘Believing Love is a Feeling.’  We all start out with butterflies in our stomach and an emotional high when we first fall in love.  Those feelings will inevitably diminish over time.  Thank God for that; it can be exhausting to live all of your life with that intensity!  The DiMarcos offer this advice:

So, let’s just say, enjoy the feelings of love when it comes, but know that love doesn’t have to feel good in order to exist.  Consider Christ on the cross.  Certainly, this perfect act of love didn’t give him the amazing feeling that we associate with true love.  In Christ’s life, love hurt, to put it mildly.  But thank God he knew the hurt that had be endured in order for love to become available to all of us (p. 15).

One act of Cupidity to which we can all potentially succumb is # 44: Expecting Another Person to Bring You Hope, Joy or Peace (from the Spiritual Act of Cupidity section).  Michael and Hayley make this point:

When you put your hope solely in the hands of another person, you are sure to be disappointed.  That isn’t because there is no hope but because your hope is to be somewhere else.  And when your hope is heavenly focused instead of humanly focused, you have all the hope you need (Romans 15:4) (p. 214) 

I found there to be many valuable pieces of advice from this Godly couple.   ‘Cupidity’ is a unique combination – lots of fun and a big help to people, particularly younger people.  All of the advice is biblically based, and there is a lot of scripture interspersed throughout.  It is valuable to both single and married people, and is geared to both men and women.  I plan on keeping it on my nightstand as a reminder to be careful to not commit any acts of Cupidity! 

This book was provided to me for review purposes by Tyndale House Publishers.