Description from Goodreads
“The word “love” is most often defined as a noun, yet… we would all love better if we used it as a verb,” writes bell hooks as she comes out fighting and on fire in All About Love. Here, at her most provocative and intensely personal, the renowned scholar, cultural critic, and feminist skewers our view of love as romance. In its place she offers a proactive new ethic for a people and a society bereft with lovelessness.
As bell hooks uses her incisive mind and razor-sharp pen to explore the question “What is love?”, her answers strike at both the mind and heart. In thirteen concise chapters, hooks examines her own search for emotional connection and society’s failure to provide a model for learning to love. Razing the cultural paradigm that the ideal love is infused with sex and desire, she provides a new path to love that is sacred, redemptive, and healing for the individuals and for a nation. The Utne Reader declared bell hooks one of the “100 Visionaries Who Can Change Your Life.” All About Love is a powerful affirmation of just how profoundly she can.
My Thoughts on the Book
While there's plenty of valid points in this book, there's also a broad generalisation in a lot of cases, and to a certain extent a bit too simplistic. Also, I'd love to see a bibliography with references and such in the back of the book, but maybe that's just the English major in me loving such things.
Another annoyance from my persepective was the heteronormative lens love is looked at, talking about the contrasts of men's perspective and women's perspective. If I remember correctly, I can count on one hand how many times queer love was mentioned in one way or another.
In addition to that, the vibe I got from this book was it's a self-help book without being a self-help book if you know what I mean. I remember I thought "is this a philosophical book/essay collection about love, or is it a self-help book disguised as something else?".
As a side-note, there's plenty of religious references and similar in this book, if anyone is a bit wary of such things. I just wanted to let people know, as not all of us are into religious themes or belong to a religion.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there's plenty of people who would appreciate All About Love, but it wasn't for me.
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