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4.26 AVERAGE
4.26 AVERAGE
informative
now i’m gonna go live with my friends and treat them as my lovers cause that’s how important they are to me.
Do you ever finish a book and then immediately turn to page 1 and start it again? I never did until this book, one of my new favorites of all time. Rosa lays bare the ways capitalism interferes with and benefits from the structure of relationships in our society - monogamous marriage, the nuclear family household, etc. She does an excellent job of interweaving ideas from other important theorists with modern and tangible examples of the issues at hand. This is a great intro to concepts like family abolition, relationship anarchy, and much more!!
I've pretty much highlighted every sentence in this book. Everyone should read this and be invited to question their worldviews.
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Rosa delivers a strong critique of how the heterosexual, monogamous nuclear family unit was built to serve the needs of capitalist economics and woefully fails the individual and society at large in the midst of rising poverty and systemic discrimination.
Instead we're invited to look alternative perspectives on intimacy and community as well as challenging the primacy of monogamous romantic bonds drawing on queer, feminist and anti-colonial perspectives, especially those from the aro/ace & QPR community. Rosa covers aspects the hollowness of the wellness industry, state-sanctioned (and erased) relationships in housing, taxes and death, and the demotion of friendship bonds relative to marriage.
> "For queers, trans people and other marginalised groups such as sex workers and rough sleepers, mutual, collective mothering in a broader support network has always been the norm. Amongst these communities, kinship networks are chosen and porous – or, as the writer Armistead Maupin has put it, ‘logical’ family. While this type of kinship may include communal living, it may also be diffuse, between people who share spaces and moments dedicated to care, connection and community. This could take infinite shapes: shared creative pursuits, childcare cooperatives, support groups, sex parties, festivals, co-authoring, political organising. As the comedian and historian Jules Joanne Gleeson argues: ‘for queers, the prospect of putting an end to the domination of private households can come to seem less extreme and more hopeful’ because it would mean ‘an end to the farce of most queers being raised by heterosexuals’."
The book sparked a lot of thoughts for me as it progressed through a broad array of alternative perspectives on bonds to others. This especially hit close to home with my own experiences with QPR, polyamory and intensity in how I naturally relate to everyone in my circle. It's well worth a read if you feel nuclear bonds as isolating and the capitalist dominion over social spheres disempowering.
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
this book allowed so much expansion of what is conditioning us to see and act as ‘normal’ and other realms of possibility of connectedness, intimacy and ways that’s aren’t feeding into capitalism! First chapter was hard to read due to longer more complex words but it’s lightens off. Highly recommend !!
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
fast-paced
hopeful
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
A fascinating insightful book that was thick with information and messages. The first chapter was hard to read with its intense academic language but it settled in quickly and didn’t hold any punches
Content Warnings
Minor: Death, Racism, Violence
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced