I know, I know. I'm supposed to love this. And the first half about was fine. Then, it began to sound like she was advocating for a both sides fault for all relationships. When you've spent as much time researching relationship abuses as I have, this starts to sound suspicious. If I reread it some day and discover that she has made a caveat for abusive relationships, I might up my rating. But there is another problem. Her encouragement of her gay sister to remain in communication with abusive family members was very problematic. This seems to be a re-emphasis of her both-sides-ism. She excuses it by saying that a few family members sounded like maybe they will eventually come around to accepting the gay sister. This is never the way to handle it. Why should the sister have to endure abuse from family? I know that in Christianity, at least, this is a common teaching, that a person must endure abusive relationships in order to be a witness and change hearts. I cannot condone it so I cannot, especially in the current anti-trans, anti-lgbt climate, recommend this book to anyone unless they are reading it purely for research purposes. ( )

This was an easy read with accessible messages. Many good common-sense lessons and good reminders. ( )

This was a bit of a heavier read for me as some topics did hit a little close to home but with more reason why this is a must-read. Hooks talks about the lack of love in our society and how better it would be if we learned to make love a priority in everyday life. Love is something that has been kept secret because of its powers of inciting change. Hooks teaches us that we all deserve to be loved and to show love to others. ( )

4 stars for the literal text/arguments made, but I'm giving it 5 because I as an individual really learned from this!

So there are definitely a handful of arguments bell hooks makes in "All About Love" that I either don't fully agree with, or feel like maybe needed more context. Sometimes she drops these broad statements such as "There would be no unemployment problems in our nation if taxes subsidized schools where everyone could learn to love", and while I understand the fundamental idea of what she's getting at, at the same time these are just such general and idealistic sound-bites that aren't backed by much substance, or simply gloss over a huge other array of problems.
This is also surprisingly quite a heteronormative approach to love. While hooks addresses queerness a couple times, a large chunk of her arguments skew towards examples of cisgender, heterosexual men and women.

HOWEVER. For every point there was that I felt I didn't fully agree with, there were a dozen more that I did, and that I took a LOT from. Probably a solid 80% of what hooks discussed I found either completely intriguing and eye-opening, or just downright hopeful and healing. She brings such passion and clarity to her ideas about what love is, how we as both the individual and a community can practice it every day, and ways that love can manifest itself. Everything from her basic definition of love to where she draws upon Welwoods work and talks about differences between heart connections and soul connections- truly revolutionary. Personally, I found the parts where she discussed love as a work and a means to grow and become more fully ourselves rather than a feeling or ideal particularly refreshing and well-done.

All in all, this is definitely a text I'll be revisiting again, even if just certain chapters. I would also offer this up as a recommendation for many people - this stuff is important. ( )

I’m all about this book except the last two chapters, which leap from human interaction into sort of Christian witnessing sort of thing. The focus of the book entirely changes and it stops being about love as hooks defines it in the first couple chapters and becomes a far more vague and, I think, cheap ending to a book of otherwise pointed, concise essays.

I highly recommend the book EXCEPT chapters 5, 12, and 13, which seem contradictory to the rest of the book. ( )