On the Bookshelf today is Red Pill Reformation by MTE. He goes by Rock Throwing Peasant in the comment sections around the manosphere, and his blog is on my blog roll. When I heard he wrote a book on the Christian Red Pill, I was intrigued. I’ve been busy lately, so it’s taken me a while to get around to reading it, but here’s my review (finally).

First, the book is fairly short, about 50 pages, with an additional 30 pages of an action plan, but it’s fairly priced at only $2.99. It’s good value for money.

As for the writing style, it’s very straightforward, basic, and to the point. Occasionally, I find the writing  can sometimes be “choppy”, but overall it reads easy, almost conversationally. He communicates his ideas effectively and functionally.

After a short introduction, the book starts with the typical beta narrative men are sold and contrasts that with the red pill of evolutionary psychology. He outlays the standard analysis of both quite well. There’s nothing new, but its a solid introduction.

I did have one little quibble; he defines hypergamy thus:

It is the innate desire of a woman to pair bond (not necessarily a relationship) with a man of higher value. In layman’s terms, think of the term, “marrying up.” Women who rate a 6 on the 1-10 scale don’t want to mate with a male 6. They want 7-10. They may marry a 5 or 6. They may have sex with a 5 or 6, but they want the 7-10. When their basic needs are met, there is little else on earth that will stop them from spending waking hours thinking about that bartender.

I don’t think he quite gets it right. Wanting to marry a higher quality mate is not exclusive to women’ men want to marry a women above their “number” as well. Hypergamy is a women’s desire for a man who more socially dominant (whether by money, fame, occupation, education, or whatever), while men desire women based primarily on looks and a pleasant personality. It’s not that women necessarily want a man with a “higher number” (although they do) that makes them hypergamous, it’s what they base the number on that does. This is a minor point, he does get the basics of hypergamy right, I just think it was a bit oversimplified and he should have explicated it a bit. The rest is of these section is good, if fairly basic for manosphere writing.

He follows with an excellent section on feminism. It provides an excellent overview of the negative effects of feminism. There’s some stuff included here I didn’t know before. I liked it.

In the next section he lays out the basics of game. Overall, he has a good general overview of the topic. Enough information to ge the basic concept without getting bogged down in detail.

I do have one criticism, the author misuses the term preselection. He writes, “Pre-selection is a female’s natural tendency to subconsciously disqualify 90% of all men she meets from any possibility of romance (carnal or other).” While women will disqualify most men, pre-selection is generally used to refer to a woman selecting a man (or not) based on how she perceives other women value that man.

At the end of the game section, he discusses the morality of game for seduction and how he rejects its use because it removes the moral component of human interaction.

He follows with two good sections on Churchianity and Marriage 2.0. These were solid introductions to the concepts.

He follows in a few sections reconciling manosphere concepts to being a Christian husband, resulting in a patriarch. In essence, he comes to the conclusion that a man is ordained by God to actively and courageously lead his home towards a goal. A good conclusion.

These first sections were the lead-up to the last 3 section which make up the bulk of the piece. These 3 sections go into detail about how to be a patriarch.

The first called “A Family of Disciples” is a practical guide to discipling your family. This will mean nothing to the non-Christians, but if you’re a Christian patriarch, it’s good advice.

The second of these sections is about developing the characteristics of “Integrity, Rational thought, Self-Awareness, Charisma, Confidence, Effective communication, Assertiveness, Optimism, and Physical Appearance.” These characteristics are developed from where game principles and Christian virtue meet. He lays out clearly why you should develop them and gives some advice on how to develop them. It is very well done and the advice is good.

The final section is called “Game and Love” and is more theoretical in nature. Here the author discusses how principles of game and of Christ interact. What I think is the essential point of the section: “God knows the heart of women and has told and shown men how to lead them. Game proponents observed God’s Way and penned the term, “game,” to give a pagan version of it.”

Rock Throwing Peasant ends the book with a 30-Day Action Plan. Everything on this list is good stuff to do/practice, although, a good portion of it is very much focused on Christians and/or the married, so if you aren’t either, fair amounts of the plan may not apply to you. For the married or to-be-married Christian, it is excellent stuf, but it is a lot of stuff. Some of it is fairly easy to do in a single day, but much of it is long-term habits to work on. If you tried to start all of it on it’s recommended day in the month, you’d likely experience willpower depletion. I would recommend practicing everything in the plan, it’s a good plan, but maybe, slow it down a bit. For the developing the larger, long-term habits, implement a new one each week or two.

Overall, the book got better as I read more. It started out a little shaky and there were some theoretical points on game that I think were mistaken. This made me skeptical at first, but the deeper into it I got, the more impressed I became. This is a great book.

It is very much geared towards the married or to-be-married Christian, so its use for those not in this category may be limited. For the red pill aware Christian, this book does a good job of sorting out the relationship between the red pill and Christian virtue, and how to develop yourself into a patriarch.

Recommendation:

This is a great book for its purpose.

If you are a married Christian or a Christian looking to be married: Buy this book. It’s an excellent guide to becoming a patriarch and exerting your leadership in your family.

If you are non-Christian and are married or looking to be married, this book is solid, and I’d recommend it, but it is based heavily upon Christian thought. You would benefit, but not as fully as a Christian would. You’d likely get more from reading Athol’s Primer; read that first, then, if you want more, pick this up. It’s definitely worth its price.

If you are not a Christian and do not plan to get married, I don’t see this book helping you very much. It’s probably not something to put high on your priority list. If you have a theoretical interest in the topic or want to develop yourself through the action plan (although,30 Days of Discipline may be more to your liking), for the price and length, its not too much of an investment if it doesn’t pan out.

If you know a young Christian male you want to introduce the red pill to, Red Pill Reformation would be an excellent place to start. Despite a couple of small quibbles about his theory of game, this book will get him thinking about the red pill, without the immediate negative reaction he might have towards material oriented towards players.