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I am one of those ooey gooey people who believes that love is, if not the only thing in the world that truly matters, the most important thing in the world by a long shot, and bell hooks has done a truly excellent job expressing her similar sentiments in a way that had me nodding in familiarity, allowing for an exciting deepening of thoughts that I haven't been able to fully form, and it is always great when a book does that.

"love is the only sane and satisfactory response to the problem of human existence."

Using Eric Fromm's definition of love--"the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth."--, hooks grabs our hand and takes us headfirst into an exploration of what true and genuine love is, the "power" it holds, and the heartbreaking reality of why so few (relative) people are able to embrace and feel true love as fear rules our hearts. I connect heavily with this definition of love, as well as this insight she included from Eric Butterworth: "True love is a peculiar kind of insight through which we see the wholeness which the person is--at the same time totally accepting the level on which he now expresses himself--without any delusion that the potential is a present reality. True loves accepts the person who now is without qualifications, but with a sincere and unwavering commitment to help him to achieve his goals of self-unfoldment--which we may see better than he does." Love is a beautiful thing, but the things we call love rarely feel like this true love which we all crave but are too scared to reach for. And the power of this true love, even if only for a moment, is so awe-inspiring and transformative, both when you are the giver and the receiver. Choosing to give and receive love, as Thomas Merton says, "is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone--we find it with another."

"Contrary to what we may have been taught to think, unnecessary and unchosen suffering wounds us but need not scar us for life. It does mark us. What we allow the mark of our suffering to become is in our own hands."

"Taking responsibility means that in the face of barriers we still have the capacity to invent our lives, to shape our destinies in ways that maximize our well-being."

I really appreciate hooks's emphasis on the fact that true love isn't coddling, therefore true self-love is not continuing to coddle yourself and exist in self-pity; that is a form of harm towards the self. Love, towards anyone, is an active choice that can cause temporary pain (whether it be leaving your safe bubble and encouraging yourself to grow or facing everyone with an open heart and facing rejection/people who are not in a state where they can love.) but ultimately gives way to a contentedness that outweighs all.

"In today's world we are taught to fear the truth, to believe it always hurts. We are encouraged to see honest people as naive, as potential losers. Bombarded with cultural propaganda ready to instill in all of us the notion that lies are more important, that truth does not matter, we are all potential victims."

At this point of the review, you may be thinking, "Liv, this review is pretty damn glowing. Why is your rating only three stars?" Well, the primary answer is best highlighted in Seven: Simply Love, where the contradictions and correlation without causation became a bit too prevalent for me, as well as a few of the takes just feeling... judgmental and insensitive and without nuance which felt quite odd and tainted my view of the book. For example, the claim that divorce rates were skyrocketing meant that we were becoming a culture who didn't love when no-fault divorce had just been legalized in 1969 felt like a huge oversight just to make a point. Additionally, the point that power is a hinderance to love and then making points that America didn't used to be the way it had become by 1999 felt a bit... odd and not really backed up, especially when, in other chapters, hooks discusses how her parents' dysfunctional family home led to her own dysfunctional family. A lot of the "evidence" in that chapter felt like grasping at straws.
Factchecking a book about love that heavily discusses love in a spiritual/Christian sense feels a bit odd for me because I do actually believe that most of this is something that can't be measured and doesn't necessarily need facts, but if you are going to present facts, they should probably be correct.

That being said, I found a lot of value in this book and think it is pivotal in our modern discussions about love. As a society, we tend to forget the vast importance of love and having authors like bell hooks is vital. She nailed a lot of it, so here are some more quotes I found value in to end the review:

"So many of us long for love but lack the courage to take risks."

"The basic interdependency of life is ignored so that separateness and individual gain can be deified."

"Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality."

"Genuine love is rarely an emotional space where needs are instantly gratified."

"in solitude we find the place where we can truly look at ourselves and shed the false self."

"When love's promise has never been fulfilled in our lives it is perhaps the most difficult practice of love to trust that the passage through the painful abyss leads to paradise."

"The foundation of such love [true love] is the assumption that we want to grow and expand, to become more fully ourselves."

"The healing power of mind and heart is always present because we have the capacity to renew our spirits endlessly, to restore the soul."

"To truly serve, we must always empty the ego so that space can exist for us to recognize the needs of others and be capable of fulfilling them."

"Love does not lead to an end to difficulties, it provides us with the means to cope with our difficulties in ways that enhance our growth."

"paradise is our home and love our true destiny."

John Wellwood: "This kind of unmasking--speaking our truth, sharing our inner struggles, and revealing our raw edges--is sacred activity, which allows two souls to meet and touch more deeply."

Thomas Merton: "Love is, in fact, an intensification of life, a completeness, a fullness, a wholeness of life,. . . . Life curves upward to a peak of intensity, a high point of value of meaning, at which all its latent creative possibility go into action and the person transcends himself or herself in encounter, response, and communion with another. It is for this that we came into the world--this communion and self-transcendence. We do not become fully human until we give ourselves to each other in love."

Thomas Merton: "Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone--we find it with another."

Jack Kornfield & Christina Feldman: "Peace is found not in the absence of challenge but in our own capacity to be with hardship without judgement, prejudice, and resistance."

3.5/5