In life, people tend to wait for good things to come to them. And by waiting, they miss out. Usually, what you wish for doesn’t fall in your lap; it falls somewhere nearby, and you have to recognize it, stand up, and put in the time and work it takes to get to it. This isn’t because the universe is cruel. It’s because the universe is smart. It has its own cat-string theory and knows we don’t appreciate things that fall into our laps.

This is not an average book. You either love it or leave it.

There are professionals for every service, and the one described in this book is professional seduction for average-looking guys. Neil Strauss writes his story of how he got involved into this world, gradually evolving from newbie to master, meeting celebrities and giving seminars, basically exposing it through his own experiences. The nice part is how he found at the end a lovely lady to stay with, leaving back all the one-night stands.

Professional seducers are guys/girls who use psychological tricks to attract and allure women. While it sounds unethical and childish, there is a proven rate of success which is good food for thought. Those tricks are not lies or cheats, but studied methods tried and tested over many evenings, which sometimes work.

Of course, the method has several important limitations. First, it helps getting to talk with a lady and get her attention, but actually staying in a couple is a totally different matter. Secondly, those methods were developed for US women and because of cultural changes, they could backfire spectacularly in other countries. Thirdly, their vocabulary is kind of teenage-ish, with AFC (average frustrated chump), PUA (pick-up artist) and PUG (pick-up guru).

While all mysterious and Don Juan-esque, the advice given is quite common sense: attraction is not physical, but mainly psychological; look clean; social pressure matters (attract friends of the lady first, make her advice group like you); etc.

The book is, obviously, misogynist and offensive, but also a cautionary tale. Not all bling-bling is what it looks like. As always, do not confuse the presented ideas with the author’s system of beliefs. You can entertain an idea without agreeing with it. Also, this is not a book of how to sleep with women.

It is divided in three parts: first part, where he presents the nice part of this seduction world; second one, where biographies and stories of various seduction artists are presented; and third, where he shows that many professionals self-destruct, because chasing women without settling becomes a soulless, lonely existence.

There are many ways to interpret this book: a study of human mating rituals, a world of self-destructing late teenagers, a misogynist eulogy (but there are woman seducers as well), a way to better understand the traps of seduction world or just a help to get talking with a crush you have. It is for the reader to decide.