This was overall a pretty decent book and it explained a lot of things on sexual selection.



Key points:



1. It seems like we already knew a lot of this information. Was it really a secret that a majority of women are after a minority of men? Was it really a secret that women seek to maximize genetic quality and that men seek to maximize genetic quality? It seems like it took quite a few pages to say this.



2. The book could have been, say, 50 pages shorter and it would not have been diminished by much. Only a lot of twitter would have been cut out.



3. The book would start with an argument and then build it up only to show some number of examples that went against what had just been talked about before. On one hand, this came across as trying to show a reasoned case, but on the other it was unfocused and came across as babbling. It also led to questions such as: "Is there really a topic here at all?" With many thousands of species on the planet, it is very possible to take some number of selected examples and lash together and argument where none exists (Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy).



The single major problem with this book was that it just wasn't as readable as it might have been. On one hand, it is likely that this topic is so broad that it might be very hard to make generalizations about what is or isn't expected. On the other hand, they could have restricted their focus to humans, but that might have made the book read like it was written by anthropologists.



Overall, it was an OK book, but it just didn't come together for some je ne sais quoi reason. It's about worth a second hand purchase price.