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Astrologically Incorrect

By Terry Marlowe

Reviewed by Madelyn Miller

Those who like their candy on the tart side will find Terry Marlowe's "Astrologically Incorrect" a tasty treat. This entertaining handbook reviews the conventional astrological signs and the people born under them, catalogued according to their customary qualities--but with an added acid twist: demonstrating step by step how to make use of people's personalities, their quirks and neurotic wrinkles, to gain advantage over them at work and in private life. The author's goal, as she makes abundantly clear, is to coach readers to manipulate lovers and bosses, friends and foes, through understanding the features of their "victim's" sign and resultant personality--"The artful strategist dissects her subject's personality to expose his vulnerable spots." 

This is not self-help for the sentimental, nor is it a guide for the lovelorn, the depressed, or those yearning for genuine trust and intimacy. This is a fun to read guide for clever cynics exasperated by the chronic obliviousness of those around them and determined to gain the upper hand through hypocrisy, deviousness, and Machiavellian wit. As such, Marlowe's advice sheds a withering glance at the potential for genuine communication--it's a book for people who have already tried their level best to be sensible and direct, and given up this approach in despair. This is the art of the con. There is not a warm-and-fuzzy suggestion in all its 216 pages.

Despite this detached and wicked perspective, or perhaps because of it, "Astrologically Incorrect" is often very funny. Viz: Under "Pisces Turn-Ons the reader finds:

             Remember, sympathy is the Pisces Achilles' heel. Pisces especially sympathizes with tragedy. If a tragic history is past praying for, borrow one. (For ideas, read Thomas Hardy or the whole of Russian literature).

Or, later:

           Pisces gets kicks hiding anywhere, even in a category.

"Astrologically Incorrect" is a listing not only of Zodiac signs and well-worn adjectives, but nuanced portraits of hypothetical individuals so palpably real that you'd swear that Marlowe has had personal experiences with your ex, your college roommate, and your first boss. Even readers who take astrology itself with a grain of salt will be impressed with Marlowe’s shrewd observations of human nature. Her profiles of varied character types will ring familiar bells for anyone with people-watching instincts, and her weary insight that human beings rarely change their fundamental habits of mind and temperament – much as they earnestly may wish to do so, or promise to do so – is very on-target. It suggests wisely that we must take people for who they are and tailor our approach to them accordingly. Perhaps this is not a very hopeful book (nor a very politically correct one), but it is a very amusing book, sure to pull guffaws from readers born under the most unsmiling of stars.

To order the book log on to http://www.terrymarlowe.com, Amazon, or visit your local Barnes and Noble or Border's Books

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