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A review by tbrnichols
The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center by Rhaina Cohen
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
5.0
This was not the book I expected it to be, it was much deeper, demanding, and better than that book would have been. I was expecting this book to be a bit more about instructing us on how to be intentional in our friendships, to build some scaffolding, but instead it explored the vast possibilities that people have built without that scaffolding and gave a sense of the territory that could exist, if only I am brave enough to go trail making with someone.
I loved the examples in this book, even the ones that from my limited and culturally inculcated perspective seem a bit sad and repressed. But even within that there is a shed of something so outside the norm and foreign to me that it puts me in my place, in awe of the agency and openness that I couldn't have imagined without role models. The book I was looking for could only be written if this book really took hold in the way it deserves to and if our culture shifted with it, but that book would still be limiting compared to the raw freedom in this book. Intentionality can only come after visibility and The Other Significant Others convincingly argues for going looking for the diamonds in the dark.
I loved the examples in this book, even the ones that from my limited and culturally inculcated perspective seem a bit sad and repressed. But even within that there is a shed of something so outside the norm and foreign to me that it puts me in my place, in awe of the agency and openness that I couldn't have imagined without role models. The book I was looking for could only be written if this book really took hold in the way it deserves to and if our culture shifted with it, but that book would still be limiting compared to the raw freedom in this book. Intentionality can only come after visibility and The Other Significant Others convincingly argues for going looking for the diamonds in the dark.