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A review by lachellerising
Where to Begin: A Small Book about Your Power to Create Big Change in Our Crazy World by Cleo Wade
1.0
Not sure who her target audience is but it definitely doesn’t resonate with me as a Black woman. I started this audiobook in hopes of hearing some prose and poetry that would inspire me to keep going after feeling spiritually depleted— what Wade offers is dull and unimaginative. Her use of language is colorless and some of her suggestions seem to cater to people who come from privileged backgrounds (re: white)
“The world will ask you to heal racism, start with doing it in your own family”. There are also suggestions in here that are so surface level and myopic that they aren’t even worth mentioning (“the world will ask you to save the environment, start by saying I don’t want a plastic bag or pick up a small piece of trash, recycle” there are more steps we can take as individuals to impede the looming climate crisis, not to mention people have been doing this for decades and it hasn’t made much of a difference).
This is not a book for someone who has endured hardship and feels discouraged from constantly giving, fighting and trying to overcome their own oppression. This is 100% a book for someone who has yet to show up and do the work— hence the title “where to begin”. I thought it would at least be uplifting, inspiring or offer a fresh perspective but it does none of that for me. Some of us constantly begin again in order to remain hopeful, but we are not who she is lifting up or speaking to.
“The world will ask you to heal racism, start with doing it in your own family”. There are also suggestions in here that are so surface level and myopic that they aren’t even worth mentioning (“the world will ask you to save the environment, start by saying I don’t want a plastic bag or pick up a small piece of trash, recycle” there are more steps we can take as individuals to impede the looming climate crisis, not to mention people have been doing this for decades and it hasn’t made much of a difference).
This is not a book for someone who has endured hardship and feels discouraged from constantly giving, fighting and trying to overcome their own oppression. This is 100% a book for someone who has yet to show up and do the work— hence the title “where to begin”. I thought it would at least be uplifting, inspiring or offer a fresh perspective but it does none of that for me. Some of us constantly begin again in order to remain hopeful, but we are not who she is lifting up or speaking to.