I loved this book. I love bell hooks in general, but happened to read this book at exactly the right time in my life so that it was a profound and transformative experience; it is always gratifying to see my own philosophy laid out in print with articulate grace, and "Communion" was deeply affirming in that way. hooks agrees with Fromm that love is an art form, "an action informed by care, respect, knowledge, and responsibility." hooks says that it is not possible to have love and domination at

Bell hooks engages in such clear, compelling discourse about how women love and learn to love. I felt validated and appropriately chastised, and I adored how she laced her own narrative through discussion of theory. My one edit is that her book exists in this binary, gendered world, and seems to exclude trans and nonbinary people. I appreciate how she may not be able to speak on that, but an acknowledgement of her limitations would have been prudent, I think.

ok, I liked it, but I have to say, it was very second-wavey, and honestly? the works hooks quotes are more insightful and incisive than the actual text of this book. but. I met this book at a very good time in my life.

i read this at amandas wearing the bee costume and i also want to give this to my mom. she unpacks all the conflated societal messages while writing directly and encouragingly. we can choose love amidst a culture of lovelessness, which is to say a culture of domination, control, and exploitation of power. we can create positive self esteem as the basis for self love and living fully. love takes work and energy, as does constructing a space for mutuality.she references and critiques contemporary

My first book by bell hooks, and won’t be my last. I appreciate writers that can put words to things that are hard to explain and I can see the way her insights have been so influential in feminist thought.

Published in 2002, "Communion: The Female Search for Love," by bell hooks/Gloria Watkins, is an excellent nonfiction title by this prolific and deeply insightful author.I breezed through this book in two days, and enjoyed it immensely. bell hooks is full of hard truths, but she presents her thoughts in such a way that her work is uplifting, compassionate, and hopeful. The voice of bell hooks rings with moral rectitude, but it is also a voice that is full of kindness, openness, and wholehearted f...

In line with my current fascination with the topics of companionship and love, I am finding a lot of understanding, warmth and good old fashioned lived wisdom in critical thinking based feminist texts. To that end, Communion goes into remarkably intricate nuances and bell hooks combines popular culture, academic research and her personal experiences to talk about not just community and love, but ambition, mother-daughter relationships, aging, monogamy and the lure and normalcy of separating roma...

I felt like this book was more like a memoir/opinion-piece than the book I thought it would be. It dives into the topic from a very personal point of view, and while some of it did ring true, a lot of it was off-putting when structured like that. Much of what I read is rooted only in the author's experience with mostly "I" statements before stringing it together with some extremely broad, vague, and repetitive conclusions. It lost me along the way.

This book explores the female search for love, how women have been disappointed by men, how women have been encouraged to move away from love, how women have been told that they are better at love then men but that is not innately true. It explores how we are surrounded societally by ideas of love based on saving and romantic fantasies, as well as narratives of how to manage men (hooks describes popular books about relationships as examples), and be in patriarchal relationships, but we are not t...

bell hooks remains, to me, an irreplaceable voice in the discourse of feminism and love. Through hooks, I have gained more insight into the areas of conflict present in my understanding of love and my relationship towards love. Her writing has introduced me to the idea of non-sexual romantic relationships and it just all makes sense, like, all of it. I appreciate her insistence that men and women are not from different planets and the commitment she shows towards the disparaging holds of "gender...

Bell hooks shares that the original work of love is the cultivation of care, knowledge, respect, and responsibility in relation to the self. I picked up this book because I’m on a journey of self-discovery and this seemed like the place to start for me in relation to love, self-love, and contentment. I realized that every time I quoted this book during the reading of it, every friend would be like — yo, can I read that after you? All the conversations I’ve had with women and my female friends, s...

I would have abandoned Communion at the first chapter if it weren't for a book club I wanted to attend. I'm glad I finished it even though I didn't really enjoy it. A lot of generalizing statements in here. I'm not interested in her use of "most women" and "we." bell hooks will be like, "MOST WOMEN had fathers who left them which is why WE seek out men who are emotionally unavailable." This happens throughout the book. Here's another one: "Lesbians, like all women, come from families where dysfu...

This book has some really great stuff in it, and I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending it to people. But it still has its flaws. A group of my friends decided to read it and then get together and talk about it, and in going back through and pulling out quotes for discussion from pages I’ve marked, I can get a good sense of what I did and didn’t like about it.The subtitle of the book is “The Female Search for Love.” And yet, despite “love” being integral to this whole book and all her ideas, bell h...

bell hooks is a feminist theorist and writer and this is part of a group of books she wrote about love. This one examines love from a female perspective, delving deeply into feminist theory, where feminism both succeeded and failed, and the utter importance of learning how to love for everyone (not just women). She discusses the importance of loving yourself before you can love anyone else, and the fact that love cannot exist in patriarchal relationships. She discusses the false idea that women

2.5 starsDidn’t really teach me anything I didn’t know, but it was nice to see reinforced some ideas/thoughts that I already had in mind.

Like everything bell hooks writes, this book is a revelation. I especially loved everything she has to say about romantic friendship and the importance of building a circle of love. This should be required reading for women of all ages, everywhere.

I think hooks' writing suffers from a lot of the same pitfalls as her previous work, All About Love: New Visions:- overgeneralization of women and women's desires- a strongly heteronormative viewpoint- repetition of ideas- far too much quoting from self-help booksHowever, the strengths of her writing are present here as well: - easy to read and understand- flows from the page- truly makes you feel something and want to act on itThere was a lot less I disagreed with in this book, and I could see

I really like bell hooks, and I really tried to like this book. But I can't stand the sweeping generalizations littered throughout this book, and I found it difficult to relate to her points. I still very much enjoy her style, but the content eludes me.

An engrossing read, although its resonance suffered since I was clearly not the target audience (since I am not a middle-aged woman at the turn of the millennium). Pros: a wonderful, nuanced discussion on how the patriarchy really screws with both women and men when it comes to love and relationships; a sadly accurate analysis of girl-on-girl hate; an interesting history of Hooks and her experiences in the feminist movement. Cons: Lots of generalizations, lots of assumptions, and confusing look

i wish i could give this book to a younger version of myself because it states so plainly a lot of things i took too long to figure out for myself. that is to say, i really like and appreciate what she's saying here, but i think i read it about 5 years too late? even so, there is much here to chew on. hooks makes the important, oft understated, point that patriarchy keeps men AND women from really knowing and loving themselves. self-love as a foundation for honest, non-dominating relationships i...