All About Love

What a wonderful first book of the year. So much love clearly went into writing this book about love, which encompasses not only romantic love but all relationships and a “love ethic” with which we treat ourselves and strangers. There are some dated moments (including a weird condemnation of Monica Lewinsky?) but overall this is a timeless book. One that I feel might be worth a yearly revisit.

I feel bad giving this book two stars because I can still appreciate and respect the insight in this book, but I ultimately found there was more that I disagreed with than agreed with. Conclusions are made about the importance of love that are often true, but the arguments are biased by the author's experiences. I agree there is a real need to continue discussing love openly and I hope that this novel imspires others to reflect. Perhaps in the future a book on the nature of love will exist that I enjoy more.

The author makes the constant assumption that “most of us” do not come from loving families and that “most of us” will never experience love as a result of this (and thus need to embrace love). This experience is obviously true for Hooks, but I don't agree with the assumption that so many people are scarred from childhood, and further that those scars prevenet people from knowing love or being able to naturally fall into healthy relationships. While people (myself included) may struggle from childhood experiences, it doesn't blind us from the possibilities of healthy love.

There are many generalizations that form the central narrative of this book that irked me as I read it. For instance, I agree with most of the obsersavtions about the patriarchy and it's limitations for love. When it comes to erotic attraction, she writes that “the pressure on men in a patriarchal society to ‘perform' sexually” leads to ignoring other emotional aspectes in relationships and covering up this mistake by “working too much, or finding playmates they like outside their committed marriage or partnership”. On women, she writes that they “rarely choose men solely on the basis of erotic connection”. Yes, I agree with the observation that the patriarchy includes that pressure on men, but all the other conclusions seem outlandish.

Aside from generalizations, I vehemently disagree with her concern of the lack of spirituality in our lives. I respect her faith and sharing her experiences on how religion has been important in her life, but I personally do not feel that a religious understanding of love is necessary to enchance life. That said, I still believe it is beneficial that she shared her perspectives on this subject even though I disagreed.

There were a few moments when I thought “yes!” as I read the novel; when Hooks articulated something I felt in my heart or touched on things that reminded me of my personal experiences and gave a voice to my convoluted hurt. But as a whole, the novel seemed to be reflecting on a single line of experience and struggle that I felt did not capture the thought of love as a whole.

Mixed feelings. Hooks offers fresh language and a perspective different from the usual Buddhist-y fare. Insights that made me pause and reflect. OTOH her spiritual background is christianity, and she harps way too much on it. She also comes off as preachy, holier-than-thou, and I don't want to make a connection there but it sure is hard not to. I got more a sense of grudging tolerance for others than compassion. She also dismissively propagates misinformation about complex historical incidents that deserve more care than she gives them.

Three stars, adding one because the good parts were really, really thought-provoking.

oooh that was a journey my friends
honest, raw, eye-opener... my jaw was, at multiple times, on the FLOOR by the easiness Bell is able to put words on complex behavior (yet, she explained it so simply that I was like, duh, of course it's the easiest thing to put into words...)

why is it not 5 stars ? as a non-religious person it feels pretty close to a religious book at times
I find myself forced to read about the bible and its content