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Rose: Love in Violent Times
Rose breaks new ground in answering a fundamental question in most feminist and anti-racist writing: how do we identify, witness, and then recover from trauma—as individuals, as families, as communities, and as a country? Muscio's ability to address dire topics with a unique freshness and bravery allows her readers to come face to face with the true brutality of a violent culture, and then react powerfully with righteous rage and hopeful determination.
256 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
February 25, 2011
Inga Muscio: the most inspiring writer I have ever encountered
December 27, 2011
The strongest sections of this book are Muscio's opening and closing chapter, where she presents strategies for disarming forms of passive violence and alternatives to dominant, oppressive, and colonizing narratives of love, sex, and interaction. The chapters on violence themselves could have benefited from more detailed analysis -- particularly the chapter on sexual assault, which focused primarily on child abuse, and could perhaps have been divided into two sections. Overall, I didn't find Rose as cohesive as Muscio's previous work, but the text would be useful as a straightforward and no-holds-barred introduction to the intersections of oppression.
July 6, 2011
I love Inga Muscio, and reading her books is like having someone illuminate the half-formed ideas and worries that bounce around in my head all the time. It's a harsh read, and not for the overly-sensitive, but well-worth it if you're willing to take a realistic look at the types of relationships we create with each other.
August 26, 2012
Oh, this was not a good book. It wasn't good because it rambled; it was pointless and meandering and drifted off without following through on whatever interesting thoughts it did begin to raise. It touched on a lot of huge, important topics and intersections, and did so without any focus, attention, or research: it's an off the cuff, disorganized rant about ideas others have treated so much more profoundly. Why on earth did this author think she could do them any better, without referencing them and building off their lessons? I guess this is a book about violence, but for all its talk about being present, the book is not grounded in a way that respects anyone's thoughts on violence save the authors', despite being filled with specious, offensive universalisms.
Shame, because I found Cunt: A Declaration of Independence and Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society both powerful.
Shame, because I found Cunt: A Declaration of Independence and Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society both powerful.
January 11, 2012
This was a hard one to rate. I love "Cunt" so much, and found "Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil" to be pretty alright. "Rose" is ok, but I have some problems with it. I understand where she's coming from and more power to her, but I feel like she may have come at this from the wrong angle. Inga tries to redefine violence as a more inclusive word, including things like lying and cheating. She also argues that eating things like broccoli and carrots are violent things because you have to kill bugs and rip the veggies out of the ground. If that's how we want to define violence, then EVERYTHING is violence. And when you define violence that way, eating a carrot or lying to someone is in the same boat as raping or murdering. That's fucked up. I still have a great respect for Inga, and can't wait to read her next book.
March 28, 2011
Muscio's third book continues her unique mix of cultural commentary, autobiography, and -- something else, something more like scripture.
This last note is something I stole from Bill McKibben's introduction to Thoreau's Walden. Muscio, like Thoreau, is concerned with the well being of our souls, and there's no other way to describe the impact of her writing.
The book is about "Love in Violent Times" and is neatly organized into two halves.
Her Old Testament vibe is on in Part I ("Violence"), which without exactly insulting Michael Moore's polemic against guns, takes his question from Bowling for Columbine --"why is there so much violence in America?" to critical depths.
Muscio says it's not particularly guns, but a cycle of "frontier violence," which is the M.O. of the United States. Simply put, the sins of the fathers are revisited upon sons and daughters in successive generations. The pogroms against Native Americans and African slaves continue to ripple towards the next war, and the next, until to this very day we are faced with tens of thousands of combat veterans coming home who will expect to address problems with violence.
In the second half of the book (on Love), Muscio goes New Testament (or in Muscio-speak, "goes all New-Testament-y on your ass.") These chapters muse on the powers of Vegemite, the dictionary, the noun "izzat" (meaning "the regard in which you hold yourself"), and the possibility that love is not just the antidote to violence, but something more life-giving.
With occasionally dorky language ("The dictionary is important shit, man"), Muscio debunks the notion that the vernacular does not also admit perfect invective ("Without Karl Rove and Dick Cheney's reptilian mastery of the English language, millions of soldiers, their families, and people in Iraq and Afghanistan would be leading much different lives.").
Muscio writes in a way that should charm college undergrads everywhere… she says "fucken" this and "fucken" that. She makes analogies between Nagasaki:Atom Bomb and Bristow, Oklahoma:Wal-Mart. She decries British Petroleum and the Bible's allowance for killing indians and blacks (people not in "our image.")
Then again, she also would seem to melt the iron hearts of CEOs and Christian soldiers everywhere. She describes, even understands, the gratitude an Iraqi refugee had for George Bush, even after her son was shot in the head by a stray bullet. She extols the virtues of Sun Tzu's The Art of War, and describes how she allowed the Spirit of Jesus into her heart one day.
Here's what this book is about, what it encourages:
Our culture could literally transform overnight if we all of a sudden woke up one morning and placed enormous value on the life going on all around us. If we magically, collectively understood that there is a place for us in the world and the world desperately needs us to love it, things would change lickedy-assed split. … It's such a simple thing, and it seems so possible.
This book shows how.
*
WHY I READ THIS BOOK: I know the author, and she gave me a copy.
This last note is something I stole from Bill McKibben's introduction to Thoreau's Walden. Muscio, like Thoreau, is concerned with the well being of our souls, and there's no other way to describe the impact of her writing.
The book is about "Love in Violent Times" and is neatly organized into two halves.
Her Old Testament vibe is on in Part I ("Violence"), which without exactly insulting Michael Moore's polemic against guns, takes his question from Bowling for Columbine --"why is there so much violence in America?" to critical depths.
Muscio says it's not particularly guns, but a cycle of "frontier violence," which is the M.O. of the United States. Simply put, the sins of the fathers are revisited upon sons and daughters in successive generations. The pogroms against Native Americans and African slaves continue to ripple towards the next war, and the next, until to this very day we are faced with tens of thousands of combat veterans coming home who will expect to address problems with violence.
In the second half of the book (on Love), Muscio goes New Testament (or in Muscio-speak, "goes all New-Testament-y on your ass.") These chapters muse on the powers of Vegemite, the dictionary, the noun "izzat" (meaning "the regard in which you hold yourself"), and the possibility that love is not just the antidote to violence, but something more life-giving.
With occasionally dorky language ("The dictionary is important shit, man"), Muscio debunks the notion that the vernacular does not also admit perfect invective ("Without Karl Rove and Dick Cheney's reptilian mastery of the English language, millions of soldiers, their families, and people in Iraq and Afghanistan would be leading much different lives.").
Muscio writes in a way that should charm college undergrads everywhere… she says "fucken" this and "fucken" that. She makes analogies between Nagasaki:Atom Bomb and Bristow, Oklahoma:Wal-Mart. She decries British Petroleum and the Bible's allowance for killing indians and blacks (people not in "our image.")
Then again, she also would seem to melt the iron hearts of CEOs and Christian soldiers everywhere. She describes, even understands, the gratitude an Iraqi refugee had for George Bush, even after her son was shot in the head by a stray bullet. She extols the virtues of Sun Tzu's The Art of War, and describes how she allowed the Spirit of Jesus into her heart one day.
Here's what this book is about, what it encourages:
Our culture could literally transform overnight if we all of a sudden woke up one morning and placed enormous value on the life going on all around us. If we magically, collectively understood that there is a place for us in the world and the world desperately needs us to love it, things would change lickedy-assed split. … It's such a simple thing, and it seems so possible.
This book shows how.
*
WHY I READ THIS BOOK: I know the author, and she gave me a copy.
July 13, 2012
I think CUNT was enough,the tone in which she makes very apparent on women who are in the sex work industry which made me rather upset and uninterested in reading anything else by Inga Muscio. It just is sad when there is such a great divide on how women treat other women, whether it be within academia or on the streets I do not support hate when it comes to women vs other women. This book divides.
June 30, 2012
What is love? What does it mean to you? What kinds of love are there? These are all themes in the book that I just read. The book is called, "rose : love in violent times" by Inga Muscio.
This book touches on the complexity of love and love in times that are violent, angry, frustrating, etc. Here are a few excerpts that I found that touched my inner me.
"One of the key hallmarks of real love--which our culture fails to identify for the most part--- is a commitment to adore the asshole that someone is. To fully protect and revere someone's weaknesses, phobias, insecurities, and maddening habits, as much as their glowing qualities. It is easy to love how great someone is. It is difficult to love what an asshole someone is. And make no mistake, everyone is an asshole."
(p. 223-224)
"Real love means finding value in most everything, and new ways to value yourself, the planet, animals, trees, people you like, people you don't like, as so on.
In love, you do not consider someone "marriage material" based on their income.
In love, you do not bury your emotions so deeply that others become fodder for your deepest fears. Therefore, you do not start a whisper campaign about the nice-looking woman in your office who rebuffed your sexual advances, or because you are jealous of her appearance.
In love, our aging parents are our elders to whom we owe a great deal. You do not stick them in an old-folks farm, unless they express a desire to live in such a place.
If we are a culture that loves, none of our children would be "banned" from the family because they are homos, or because they choose someone outside the family's race or religion or because they are transgender.
In love, you bolster and support, you do not try to 'change' anyone."
You can change the violence of our world sooner than you can change an individual."
(p. 225-226)
This books gives an insight that I did not have on the subject before. It's a view that is open, loving, assertive, caring, happy, sad, frustrating and it is.
This book touches on the complexity of love and love in times that are violent, angry, frustrating, etc. Here are a few excerpts that I found that touched my inner me.
"One of the key hallmarks of real love--which our culture fails to identify for the most part--- is a commitment to adore the asshole that someone is. To fully protect and revere someone's weaknesses, phobias, insecurities, and maddening habits, as much as their glowing qualities. It is easy to love how great someone is. It is difficult to love what an asshole someone is. And make no mistake, everyone is an asshole."
(p. 223-224)
"Real love means finding value in most everything, and new ways to value yourself, the planet, animals, trees, people you like, people you don't like, as so on.
In love, you do not consider someone "marriage material" based on their income.
In love, you do not bury your emotions so deeply that others become fodder for your deepest fears. Therefore, you do not start a whisper campaign about the nice-looking woman in your office who rebuffed your sexual advances, or because you are jealous of her appearance.
In love, our aging parents are our elders to whom we owe a great deal. You do not stick them in an old-folks farm, unless they express a desire to live in such a place.
If we are a culture that loves, none of our children would be "banned" from the family because they are homos, or because they choose someone outside the family's race or religion or because they are transgender.
In love, you bolster and support, you do not try to 'change' anyone."
You can change the violence of our world sooner than you can change an individual."
(p. 225-226)
This books gives an insight that I did not have on the subject before. It's a view that is open, loving, assertive, caring, happy, sad, frustrating and it is.
May 23, 2011
i started reading and rolled my eyes a little bit at her casual conversation style full of slang and swearing, but I really got into it, and the light tone helps balance the heavy-ass content of the book (i love heavy content, and sometimes don't have anything to balance it, and wallow in depression). she tackles war and rape and death and the challenges of healthy relationships. i talked about this book a lot in the week after i finished it, and i'd love to talk about it more, so read it!
January 29, 2012
A wonderful companion to Cunt, because while there is plenty to be angry about in it, it gives a fairly concrete way of dealing. It talks about love, and expanding our definition of love alongside an expanded definition of violence. When I felt absolutely incapable of dealing with the enormity of the perspectives in Cunt, I was recommended this book; it worked wonders, and really helped me clarify what I was trying to do with my concept of feminism.
November 6, 2011
A Fantastic. This book is to be read, devoured, delighted, pausing, oh, it's just brilliant. One thing she gets on is how violent and horrible rape/sexual assault is - but how accepted it is in our society, and how underpunished. Trigger warnings here…but mostly, full of love. I want to live my life like Inga's. Beautiful stuff here.
March 13, 2011
Holy shit, this book is amazing.
July 2, 2019
Such a good read. Nice follow up to Cunt. Not as out there as Cunt, but still. Inga Muscio has a great mind, and I highly enjoy seeing where she goes with her feminism.
August 10, 2016
Interesting, though not as engaging as her previous 2 books.
February 17, 2023
Let me first start off with, I've never read anything from Muscio before reading Rose. As a nonfiction book, I think that it read simply and it was engaging. Every time Muscio wrote "Whee" I just imagined them spinning in a circle in an office chair behind a computer. It reads conversational therefore skews unprofessional, but that's not inherently a bad thing.
For this reason, the book is great and only okay. Discussing these topics (might I add many, in such a short book) is convoluted (and borderline impossible and unreasonable). Attempting to open this dialogue is just not easy. I think Muscio did a great job presenting that there is always more that what meets the eye in most situations. For example, passive aggression is active aggression, we just taught ourselves as a society to forgive and ignore passive actions. For the ability to present these issues I believe it to be a good introduction. It was like a "Welcome to the conversation, Here is a brochure!"
It would have helped Muscio to use references and resources to help facilitate the educated discussion on these topics. It would have made the arguments sound. It would have helped to facilitate their essays logically and completely as well. However, in lieu of references, it comes off rant-y and loud. I never met Muscio, but I imagine that they are both rant-y and loud. So, I move on.
In terms of presentation, the book would have been more effective with a little more planning. I found myself more often than once waiting to read the conclusion of a claim and then quickly being redirected to a new idea. I think some of the chapters were incomplete and limited. (this is tough) I find while writing this review that I don't want more from Musicio... I just want better. It was like someone was flipping the TV channels too quickly. I would have enjoyed a more thorough discussion, even if that meant less topics. But, again... though I found this to be a limitation, Muscio has a close connection to voice in their writing so it still feels authentic.
There are some wonderful pockets of this book. I take the wisdom and leave the rest. I enjoyed the perspective. I do wish there was more tangible grit to the book (as mentioned). I remind myself that, this book, more than anything, is only a perspective. In any case, an important perspective to digest. In spite of the technicalities that I had some grievance with, I think Muscio brings awareness to the shadows and reality of true violence. A perspective that is bold and hasty and has character and attitude, but no less a perspective that should be read by all.
For this reason, the book is great and only okay. Discussing these topics (might I add many, in such a short book) is convoluted (and borderline impossible and unreasonable). Attempting to open this dialogue is just not easy. I think Muscio did a great job presenting that there is always more that what meets the eye in most situations. For example, passive aggression is active aggression, we just taught ourselves as a society to forgive and ignore passive actions. For the ability to present these issues I believe it to be a good introduction. It was like a "Welcome to the conversation, Here is a brochure!"
It would have helped Muscio to use references and resources to help facilitate the educated discussion on these topics. It would have made the arguments sound. It would have helped to facilitate their essays logically and completely as well. However, in lieu of references, it comes off rant-y and loud. I never met Muscio, but I imagine that they are both rant-y and loud. So, I move on.
In terms of presentation, the book would have been more effective with a little more planning. I found myself more often than once waiting to read the conclusion of a claim and then quickly being redirected to a new idea. I think some of the chapters were incomplete and limited. (this is tough) I find while writing this review that I don't want more from Musicio... I just want better. It was like someone was flipping the TV channels too quickly. I would have enjoyed a more thorough discussion, even if that meant less topics. But, again... though I found this to be a limitation, Muscio has a close connection to voice in their writing so it still feels authentic.
There are some wonderful pockets of this book. I take the wisdom and leave the rest. I enjoyed the perspective. I do wish there was more tangible grit to the book (as mentioned). I remind myself that, this book, more than anything, is only a perspective. In any case, an important perspective to digest. In spite of the technicalities that I had some grievance with, I think Muscio brings awareness to the shadows and reality of true violence. A perspective that is bold and hasty and has character and attitude, but no less a perspective that should be read by all.
January 9, 2022
I really enjoyed the content of the book and the overall message. However, it's written in a manner where the author calls people out for violence but then turns around and writes the entire thing in a hostile tone while attacking people like Gordon Ramsey for no good reason. The message, while a good one, seemed crowded and disregarded by hypocrisy of using such an angry tone at many times. I was also hoping there would be considerably more content on "love in violent times" rather than half a book telling of various sexual assaults. If the point of the book is to discuss love in violent times then it should probably fill more than 1/8 of the book. The title was a bit misleading and I feel like the author fails to recognize within herself the very faults she's pointing fingers at negatively. We are all violent.
February 21, 2017
took me forever to get through. for whatever reason, I didn't find it as captivating as her previous book
January 25, 2024
it made me think 🤔 it gets so incredibly extremely heavy in the middle . she is very american the way she goes on and that is not for me personally BUT i think it made me a bit more self aware🧐
February 6, 2015
Relying on the shock value of describing gratuitous violence is cheap. We don't need to know why rape is bad or how prolific it is. We know, Muscio. Referring to how you understand the plight of survivors because of what your partner goes through, and how the littlest things make them have flashbacks, and admitting that one in three people are survivors, means nothing when you don't factor your readers' safety in, too. Like, can I get a trigger warning before you describe the stalking, rape, and murder of children? Please?
You know what else is cheap? Relying on the word "holocaust" whenever you're too lazy to reach for your beloved dictionary. Comparing the mass murder of BROCCOLI of all things to the systematic death of millions of people and their culture is not an equal comparison. If this occurred just once I'd think, okay, fine, poor word choice but life goes on. Unfortunately, it happens about once every chapter.
One more cheap thing: romanticizing the culture of Native Americans and First Nation people. Yeah, we get it, they lived in peace with the land and didn't drill for oil. Stop referring back to them once per chapter when, again, you're too lazy to make any other comparison.
Later, in the part of the book which is actually about love, her definition of sex is pretty problematic. You can't have sex without love, according to her. Anything else is "elaborate masturbation." Which sounds pretty slut-shamey to me. Some people just like to have sex, and don't need an emotional attachment. Others are all about love, but not sex. To imply that they're inexplicably intertwined is archaic, just like the thought she has a few pages later that says everyone must release sexual energy, that it's involuntary, and that the Columbine perpetrators (among others) did what they did as a way of releasing their pent-up sexual energy. Um, citation needed.
Ultimately, I sought out this book after I loved "Cunt" by the same author. I expected it to be more about the love and less about the violence. Instead, almost three-fourths of the book is devoted to wide and shallow descriptions of any type of violence imaginable, including against plants. It describes a vaguely-far-leftist, anti-government, anti-corporate ideology, backed by points that are becoming outdated, fast. Most of the book refers to contemporary events such as the BP oil spill that, while important, are falling too quickly into history to be alluded to in a line and then whisked away without any further description or analysis.
If you want to know about love: read the last chapter. If you want descriptions of any kind of violence imaginable, over and over, like unholy instant replays: read the rest.
You know what else is cheap? Relying on the word "holocaust" whenever you're too lazy to reach for your beloved dictionary. Comparing the mass murder of BROCCOLI of all things to the systematic death of millions of people and their culture is not an equal comparison. If this occurred just once I'd think, okay, fine, poor word choice but life goes on. Unfortunately, it happens about once every chapter.
One more cheap thing: romanticizing the culture of Native Americans and First Nation people. Yeah, we get it, they lived in peace with the land and didn't drill for oil. Stop referring back to them once per chapter when, again, you're too lazy to make any other comparison.
Later, in the part of the book which is actually about love, her definition of sex is pretty problematic. You can't have sex without love, according to her. Anything else is "elaborate masturbation." Which sounds pretty slut-shamey to me. Some people just like to have sex, and don't need an emotional attachment. Others are all about love, but not sex. To imply that they're inexplicably intertwined is archaic, just like the thought she has a few pages later that says everyone must release sexual energy, that it's involuntary, and that the Columbine perpetrators (among others) did what they did as a way of releasing their pent-up sexual energy. Um, citation needed.
Ultimately, I sought out this book after I loved "Cunt" by the same author. I expected it to be more about the love and less about the violence. Instead, almost three-fourths of the book is devoted to wide and shallow descriptions of any type of violence imaginable, including against plants. It describes a vaguely-far-leftist, anti-government, anti-corporate ideology, backed by points that are becoming outdated, fast. Most of the book refers to contemporary events such as the BP oil spill that, while important, are falling too quickly into history to be alluded to in a line and then whisked away without any further description or analysis.
If you want to know about love: read the last chapter. If you want descriptions of any kind of violence imaginable, over and over, like unholy instant replays: read the rest.
October 24, 2012
Title: morning in the burned house
author: Margaret Atwood
Pages: 127
Structure: Five Parts
Plot: This poetry collection contains surreal poems, poems inspired by mythology/fairy tales, poetry about nature, and about death. The collection is dark and only gets darker as it goes on; there were also times where it felt as if it mocked the reader.
Review: I will admit, I’m not a huge Atwood fan. I’ve tried to read a few of her novels but never got into them— despite being impressed by their backs and her reputation. I do like her flash fiction/prose poetry, however. So a few months ago I decided to buy this— one of her poetry collections— to see if it impressed me. When I started reading this book I was shocked to see how amateur the poetry read to me. Atwood writes a lot of surreal poetry here, but she doesn’t seem to think her reader will get it/ the meaning— so she hammers it over the head. It was a little condescending, and obviously unappealing. She uses a lot ofthe second person which I generally enjoy, but didn’t feel she mastered here. I only really started to enjoy this in the third part, and only fully enjoyed the fourth and fifth parts. The last two parts of the novel were heavily concerned with death, but framed it in a different way— we see the suffering of nature, and her dying father. Although the ecological poems were also a little too heavy handed, they engaged me more. This collection was poor over all although it had it’s shining lines throughout. Atwood had these glimmers of great poetry, but she could not hold a ssteady poem. I really expected more from this book and if I could go back in time I wouldn’t have bought it.
poems to read: “Helen of Troy Does Counter Dancing,” “Half-Hung Mary,” “Down” “Dancing,” “The Fire Place.”
Rating: 2.5/5*s
author: Margaret Atwood
Pages: 127
Structure: Five Parts
Plot: This poetry collection contains surreal poems, poems inspired by mythology/fairy tales, poetry about nature, and about death. The collection is dark and only gets darker as it goes on; there were also times where it felt as if it mocked the reader.
Review: I will admit, I’m not a huge Atwood fan. I’ve tried to read a few of her novels but never got into them— despite being impressed by their backs and her reputation. I do like her flash fiction/prose poetry, however. So a few months ago I decided to buy this— one of her poetry collections— to see if it impressed me. When I started reading this book I was shocked to see how amateur the poetry read to me. Atwood writes a lot of surreal poetry here, but she doesn’t seem to think her reader will get it/ the meaning— so she hammers it over the head. It was a little condescending, and obviously unappealing. She uses a lot ofthe second person which I generally enjoy, but didn’t feel she mastered here. I only really started to enjoy this in the third part, and only fully enjoyed the fourth and fifth parts. The last two parts of the novel were heavily concerned with death, but framed it in a different way— we see the suffering of nature, and her dying father. Although the ecological poems were also a little too heavy handed, they engaged me more. This collection was poor over all although it had it’s shining lines throughout. Atwood had these glimmers of great poetry, but she could not hold a ssteady poem. I really expected more from this book and if I could go back in time I wouldn’t have bought it.
poems to read: “Helen of Troy Does Counter Dancing,” “Half-Hung Mary,” “Down” “Dancing,” “The Fire Place.”
Rating: 2.5/5*s
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October 28, 20244.5 stars -
I didn't agree entirely with everything, but understood this as a deeply personal reflection for the author.
Some of the chapter on rape was a bit too detailed and disturbing for me, even as a gender studies major. Still, I took breaks and it was doable and I think important for many people. Major trigger warning in that section for readers.
The later chapters on human kindness and love really provided me with incredible guidance in this difficult times. I highly recommend for anyone struggling to process the horrors we are currently witnessing and trying to stay sane and make a difference.
I didn't agree entirely with everything, but understood this as a deeply personal reflection for the author.
Some of the chapter on rape was a bit too detailed and disturbing for me, even as a gender studies major. Still, I took breaks and it was doable and I think important for many people. Major trigger warning in that section for readers.
The later chapters on human kindness and love really provided me with incredible guidance in this difficult times. I highly recommend for anyone struggling to process the horrors we are currently witnessing and trying to stay sane and make a difference.
March 3, 2013
I read this over three days, couldn't put it down. Muscio continues exploring some of the issues she wrote about in Cunt. She's smart, funny and emotionally honest without being maudlin. Memorable line: "A lover would know my deepest thoughts, traumas, and joys, as well as my body, sexuality, and how I express sexual intimacy. Someone who would know my family and all their truths. And mostly, someone who would know what an asshole I am, and proactively protect all of it."
August 5, 2014
Solid. I love how the author does not shy away from truth, but pulls the reader into deep recognition of the things that happen in the world from which we'd rather look away. It was difficult to read some of the things she needed to share, but until we live in a world where those things don't happen, I'm glad that there are people like Inga Muscio who have the courage to scream and shout about them.
January 20, 2016
This is the best book I've read in a long time. It is so important and deals with living out real love in our violent world. It speaks on passive violence along with physical violence, war, love, sex, power and control, capitalism, the earth, animals, izzat, and so much more. I recommend it to all people.
February 5, 2011
everything this woman writes is amazing
May 1, 2011
Ranty, depressing at times, but really captivating and excellent read.
July 2, 2012
So far, after the first couple of chapters I wonder whether or not the big picture fort the book is about violence in today's society or what the world is coming to.
December 6, 2012
poweful
July 13, 2013
The main thing I took away here is that violence is more complicated than it seems, suffuses our lives a lot more than is obvious, and requires active awareness.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews