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A review by schomj
Who Is Wellness For?: An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who It Leaves Behind by Fariha Róisín
challenging
dark
reflective
fast-paced
2.0
So disappointing. I was so excited by the premise and was anticipating it to be engaging in way similar to the Yoga is Dead podcast. Alas, no.
Instead of a deep dive into targeted critiques of the wellness industry from a coherent and culturally anchored point of view, it alternates between memoir and cherry-picked quotes from (mostly) better thinkers loosely connected by short bits of the author's own prose. She essentially is decontextualizing convenient quotes from their source material in support of her meandering arguments in a way that is ironic and also sometimes misleading. (But her understanding of what science is seems really tenuous so it's possible that it's less misleading than it is just her being confused. IDK)
At times it honestly feels like a first draft that no one edited. I say this because this is how I draft papers. But at a certain point I was telling the book that it needs to paraphrase and not just (block) quote. It is not generally a good sign when I start talking back to books about editing choices.
Also for a book that's supposedly at least nominally coming from a disability perspective, the sanism and dominance of the medical model were both... grim. And at times sounded like something you would hear from a "wellness" MLM grifter.
The book is strongest when it functions as a memoir. It's where the author has the most to say, where her voice is clearest and where her actual expertise is. If her editor had been paying attention, they should have told her to jettison the rest and be true to her strengths.
Instead of a deep dive into targeted critiques of the wellness industry from a coherent and culturally anchored point of view, it alternates between memoir and cherry-picked quotes from (mostly) better thinkers loosely connected by short bits of the author's own prose. She essentially is decontextualizing convenient quotes from their source material in support of her meandering arguments in a way that is ironic and also sometimes misleading. (But her understanding of what science is seems really tenuous so it's possible that it's less misleading than it is just her being confused. IDK)
At times it honestly feels like a first draft that no one edited. I say this because this is how I draft papers. But at a certain point I was telling the book that it needs to paraphrase and not just (block) quote. It is not generally a good sign when I start talking back to books about editing choices.
Also for a book that's supposedly at least nominally coming from a disability perspective, the sanism and dominance of the medical model were both... grim. And at times sounded like something you would hear from a "wellness" MLM grifter.
The book is strongest when it functions as a memoir. It's where the author has the most to say, where her voice is clearest and where her actual expertise is. If her editor had been paying attention, they should have told her to jettison the rest and be true to her strengths.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse and Sexual assault