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A review by bootman
How to Be Authentic: Simone de Beauvoir and the Quest for Fulfillment by Skye Cleary
5.0
I was fortunate enough to get an early copy of this book, and it was so good that I binged it within a day. The only other book I’ve read from Cleary is the one she co-authored How to Live a Good Life: A Guide to Choosing Your Personal Philosophy, and since then, I’ve followed her on Twitter, and she’s a cool person. I was skeptical of this book because as much as I love philosophy, I dislike history books and biographies. I’ve tried reading some biographical books of some philosophers and was bored out of my mind. This book was totally different, and if more biographical books were written like this, I’d read all of them.
I had zero knowledge of Simone de Beauvoir other than hearing her name now and then. This book not only made me interested in some of her work, but I gained so much value from the lessons Cleary pulls from Beauvoir’s work. What made this book great is that it’s maybe 40-50% biography, but the rest is analyzing Beauvoir’s ideas and explaining them with real-world examples. Cleary pulls from some personal stories such as her experience being a woman or about marriage, and she also explains how Beauvoir's ideas can be applied to modern-day activism and other situations. It’s also great because as much as Cleary respects Beauvoir’s work, she discusses some of Beauvoir’s controversial or outdated views as well.
This book is phenomenal, and I haven’t gained this much value from a book in a while. I’ll definitely be re-reading it, and it deserves a ton of attention once it launches.
I had zero knowledge of Simone de Beauvoir other than hearing her name now and then. This book not only made me interested in some of her work, but I gained so much value from the lessons Cleary pulls from Beauvoir’s work. What made this book great is that it’s maybe 40-50% biography, but the rest is analyzing Beauvoir’s ideas and explaining them with real-world examples. Cleary pulls from some personal stories such as her experience being a woman or about marriage, and she also explains how Beauvoir's ideas can be applied to modern-day activism and other situations. It’s also great because as much as Cleary respects Beauvoir’s work, she discusses some of Beauvoir’s controversial or outdated views as well.
This book is phenomenal, and I haven’t gained this much value from a book in a while. I’ll definitely be re-reading it, and it deserves a ton of attention once it launches.