I've read more academic books (and think those are important, too. For that, I recommend "Demystifying Borderline Personality Disorder"), but this one was accessible and engaging, and had useful and practical advice for people with the illness and those around them. Because of that, the book gives the reader a sense of hope. In this field, that can be rare. There is some sexual content, and I can understand why some people would find that offensive. I personally didn't. Any misgivings I have about the book are offset by my enthusiasm about its readability and its usefulness to the people for whom it is written: borderlines and their families.

Good advice despite flawed writing. This book serves both as a good introduction to borderline personality disorder and general advice for persons with BPD and their families, partners, etc.... . I recognized many of my own observations and experiences with my mother, who suffers from BPD. The book summarizes the different ways of understanding and treating BPD; each chapter highlights a key aspect of the disorder, how it manifests and how one can deal with it. There's a healthy degree of empathy, and illuminating explanations of what appears to be peculiar and eratic behaviour. Each chapter closes with "action steps", reasoned responses to the challenges and crises that BPD creates, though sometimes they are intended for the person with BPD and other times for the persons around them.

But the short stories or monologues that begin each chapter, serving as "case studies", read as shallow and sensationalist, cramming all sorts of possible permutations of the disorder in one scenario; I would have preferred to read a personal account by someone affected by BPD in their own words, or various accounts that allow you to see a range of experiences. It doesn't help that the characters are rather homogenous - from a middle-class, white background; it limits one's ability to relate. And while the authors' cultural references - from Shakespeare to Frank Herbert to Nora Ephron - can be interesting, they don't add much substance and are sometimes distracting. And one last gripe: the BPD "checklist" seems like a dangerous exercise in self-diagnosis - particularly when "sexual confusion (e.g., bisexuality)" is listed as a warning sign without explanation; I could do without the pathologizing of bisexuality. These are, nonetheless, all flaws I could read around, and there is valuable information here.