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A review by rachelagain
Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family by Sophie Lewis
3.0
I have such mixed feelings about this book. I think it could have been a fantastic read but its use of language makes it so inaccessible to almost anyone other than Lewis and her direct peers that it is genuinely difficult to read.
Lewis is a theoretician and this is certainly a theory text rather than general non-fiction book about surrogacy. I get the impression that Lewis is aiming this book at scholars (particularly Marxist family abolitionist feminists) rather than the general public.
I found myself reading and re-reading paragraphs two or three times to (a) understand the words being used and (b) determine the argument Lewis is making, and whether it is credible. It was frustrating that Lewis would frequently use niche terms and barely, if at all, define them (even to define the terms of the argument she makes) e.g. cyborg feminism.
A few times in the book, Lewis seemed to indulge in literal wordplay for a few paragraphs, tie it in to a single point of substance and then suggest that this example is what is meant by "full surrogacy now". This was most obvious and frustrating in the conclusion. At the end of the book I felt I was left with a very vague sense of Lewis's actual position on how full surrogacy would work and the conditions necessary to protect surrogates as workers. Lewis was much clearer in critiquing other scholars', clinicians' and writers' arguments than in articulating the parameters of her own.
Perhaps my expectations of this book were unrealistic - I was hoping for something that would be more accessible but still challenging. It felt as though the book was barely edited, or that the editor didn’t recognise that long, dense sentences with neologisms and unfamiliar theory terms would be offputting to non-scholars.
The book does have some excellent and compelling analysis so I am certain I will read and refer to it again (and hopefully find it easier to read a second time). However I will have to recommend it to others with the caveat that it is a book that will be laborious to read.
Lewis is a theoretician and this is certainly a theory text rather than general non-fiction book about surrogacy. I get the impression that Lewis is aiming this book at scholars (particularly Marxist family abolitionist feminists) rather than the general public.
I found myself reading and re-reading paragraphs two or three times to (a) understand the words being used and (b) determine the argument Lewis is making, and whether it is credible. It was frustrating that Lewis would frequently use niche terms and barely, if at all, define them (even to define the terms of the argument she makes) e.g. cyborg feminism.
A few times in the book, Lewis seemed to indulge in literal wordplay for a few paragraphs, tie it in to a single point of substance and then suggest that this example is what is meant by "full surrogacy now". This was most obvious and frustrating in the conclusion. At the end of the book I felt I was left with a very vague sense of Lewis's actual position on how full surrogacy would work and the conditions necessary to protect surrogates as workers. Lewis was much clearer in critiquing other scholars', clinicians' and writers' arguments than in articulating the parameters of her own.
Perhaps my expectations of this book were unrealistic - I was hoping for something that would be more accessible but still challenging. It felt as though the book was barely edited, or that the editor didn’t recognise that long, dense sentences with neologisms and unfamiliar theory terms would be offputting to non-scholars.
The book does have some excellent and compelling analysis so I am certain I will read and refer to it again (and hopefully find it easier to read a second time). However I will have to recommend it to others with the caveat that it is a book that will be laborious to read.