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Book Review:
How to Set His Thighs on Fire: 86 Red-Hot Lessons on Love, Life, Men, and (Especially) Sex, Kate White
You can’t run a magazine like Cosmopolitan and not have women dying to find out what you know. And after eight years at the helm of the world’s best-selling women’s magazine, Kate White is ready to tell. HOW TO SET HIS THIGHS ON FIRE: 86 Red-Hot Lessons on Love, Life, Men, and (Especially) Sex is an entertaining and informative guidebook with enticing lessons you won’t find anywhere else. White has compiled the must-have little instruction book for any girl who wants to take on the world and needs the inside scoop on how to do it – from a successful woman in the know.
SET HIS THIGHS ON FIRE
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 272
Publisher: Warner Books
Publishing Date: June 14, 2006A book named How to Set His Thighs On Fire might incite groans or chuckles for its kitsch and Harlequin-style title, but the book is far from being fluff. Author Kate White, editor of world-renowned Cosmopolitan magazine, uses her eight years at the helm of a top-selling magazine to impart advice on the life biggies: relationships, love, work, personal success, and – what we’ve all secretly picked up the book for – sex.
These life lessons are spread out over 86 succinct chapters, most about two to three pages long, and cover almost every topic under the sun, from how to keep a secret to the kiss that men crave the most. Even topics that you wouldn’t expect, such as discovering the thrill of not wearing panty hose or secrets to achieving a “golden gut” (i.e. a honed sense of intuition), are thrown into this potpourri of a guidebook to living and enjoying life.
I don’t normally get pleasure from self-help books, mostly because their authors often adopt a tone of superiority while they tell you why your life sucks or why no one loves you, and partly because advice is often geared towards making us feel like everything we’ve done since the age of two has contributed to our crappiness (“tough love,” if you will). In contrast, the magazine editorial experience has helped White to assume a down-to-earth and friendly tone. While never condescending, White is frank and empowering, dishing out tips on how to develop the wonderful you that already exists, while unleashing the sexy, successful, and ambitious woman that lives in all of us. And honestly, a book where unabashed talks about blowjobs and advice on how to achieve your own orgasm coincide side-by-side is very fine by me – I’m all for the equal opportunity.
From the start, White jumps in with personal anecdotes and magazine tidbits that keep the book from floundering into boring territory. Even the most mundane chapters, like “Discover the Thrill of No Panty Hose” (really, that made the final edit of the book), and the most obvious, like “Guys Will Do Whatever It Takes To Get You Into Bed” (any viewing of the American Pie series will tell us that), benefit from personable gems that move the paragraphs along. In “Men Actually Are Men of Few Words,” White isn’t afraid to let us know that she is not immune to silly tiffs with her husband that eventually lead to lessons learned in her own life.
Unfortunately, White isn’t immune to repetition either. With 86 chapters to hash out, How To Set His Thighs On Fire can seem like a broken record at times, often when it comes to the sex advice, and especially when it deals with a man’s scrotum. (Still, hearing good advice more than once never hurt anyone.) Another recurring topic is White’s job offer at Cosmopolitan – this will come up several times, often until you can recall what she was doing, what she was wearing, and what the weather was like when the fateful call came in. After reading this book, you will probably also remember all the celebrities that White has worked with, and who her current favourites are. Juicy celebrity tidbits make for good times, but after the fiftieth name-drop, would work better in a memoir rather than a non-fiction book for the average working woman.
In “Sex Is One of the Best Things in Life,” White stretches what would be a ten-word chapter into two pages by not only advising us to add blue or turquoise to our bedrooms, but also by quoting Patrick Dempsey of “Grey’s Anatomy” fame, who says in a Cosmo interview, “It’s important to have a lot of sex because if you don’t, your relationship will definitely be in danger. I think you have to have great, hot sex, and you have to experiment with your partner…If you stop having sex, your relationship is over.” I’m sure that many guys share the same sentiment, but by quoting a television actor who speaks the blatantly obvious, it’s almost as if White tries to convince us that it’s enough evidence to support her point. And frankly, while I do enjoy his work on “Grey’s Anatomy,” Dempsey wouldn’t necessarily be the first person I’d turn to for relationship counseling.
While some chapters are useful and offer inside knowledge despite reading like magazine copy (“11 Fascinating Facts About Cheating,” “5 Mind-Blowing Sex Tricks,” “The 26 Best Tips I Learned From Beauty Editors”), most, when stripped down from White’s affable writing or exciting tales, only offer the barest of common sense. Take, for instance, “Don’t Believe Everything You Think,” where White tells us that we might miss out on a great opportunity if we place ourselves in a box (and she’ll also cite her rise to editor as an example), or “Guys Love A Little Kinkiness” and “People Who Act Innocent Rarely Are,” which are self-explanatory from the title alone. Ultimately, White assumes that you've never read any women's magazines before, or lived in the outside world for that matter.
Chapters are haphazardly placed in the book with little cohesiveness, which can become excruciating when the author references chapters that have yet to come. Fortunately, a neat little index in the back of the book organizes chapters into sections (“Life,” “Men and Love,” “Sex,” “Style,” and “Work”), which makes quick referencing of the book more bearable.
How To Set His Thighs On Fire should not be treated as a Bible on how to live life, or even as a deep look at the human psyche. Rather, it should be taken at face value. It’s an enjoyable, empowering read that will make you think, giggle, and feel great about yourself, much like what hanging out with a good girlfriend will do for you. White may not have a formidable book on her hands – but she’s had fun with it, and hopefully you will too. ¤ C.Ho.
HOW TO SET HIS THIGHS ON FIRE:
(out of 5)