Kenzie’s Reviews > All About Love: New Visions > Status Update

I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS. I do not agree with forgiveness being some kind of necessary step to healing. I agree with a lot of things in this book but it really suffers from black and white thinking giving some kind of absolute statement that leaves no room for nuance. I don't think the presence of fear makes love impossible. My review for this one is gonna look crazy it's gonna be a whole mini essay

i have so many thoughts on this book, but my main takeaway is that bell hooks would benefit from having a larger vocabulary for “love” so that a majority of her points had better clarity to them without coming across as borderline heteronormative. and like, published in 1999, some terms that i know of now literally did not exist then, but she is capable of it throughout the book until she isn’t for some reason

So far my biggest issue keeps circling back to the point she makes about the (paraphrased) idea that abuse is inherently loveless. It makes a lot of her arguments contradict each other and completely fails to acknowledge nuance in a lot of social circumstances that result in isolation and/or dissatisfying relationships leading to abusive mistreatment. I have more to say but cannot here very sad very tragic