Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

This book is excellent. Witty, intelligent, and so relatable. Weaving in personal, intimate memoir and well researched, wide reaching examinations of love under capitalism, motherhood under patriarchy, marriage, politics, religion, self love and addiction through a millennial, trans woman’s lens. It had me nodding like a nodding dog and saying mmmm on many occasions.

Using cultural touch-points, historical events, literary and feminist theory, and myth to evaluate her own issues with modern day versions of love, Faye writes accessibly, flowing seamlessly from one idea to another without ever losing the reader in her argument.

Particular highlights were her in depth analysis of Lana del ray’s 2012 album, Amy Winehouse’s public shaming, Sex and the City’s groundbreaking idea that female friendship is where women often find their real ‘soulmates�, and her writing ‘fuck you� in the margins of Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch.

Love is a political thing, and capitalism has made love a commodity. And Faye is both entangled within the nets of these social structures, whilst also being othered by them. But I didn’t take from this book that she does not believe in love in all its forms, just that we should interrogate what it is before we put it on a pedestal, or jump in head first. In the post-script she writes:

“Love is a risky business and it hurts. I want to bear witness to that, and still try anyway[…]Sometimes the truth is that the agony has very little at all to tell me except the certainty that I have a body that still feels and a heart that still beats, and so still a future beyond.�