A review by cherrie_bluhd
Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive by Kristin Neff

2.0

I wanted to like this book more than I actually did. I think much of her analysis of feminism felt surface-level and limited to her own (white, cishet, middle class) values and perspectives. It was hard to not feel like the book was a little out of touch sometimes with its goals and intents in that respect (For example — her use of ‘transsexual’ in the book was cringe-worthy at best). Many of the exercises in the book appear helpful and I would like to try them myself, but I feel as though they would have been even more impactful and profound if they were rooted in a more in-depth understanding of contemporary intersectional feminism and it’s issues. It appears as a useful toolkit in need of much adaptation for my own purposes and best serve relevant political forces. bell hooks’ “All About Love” stands out to me as much more thorough, thoughtful, and useful, in comparison to this text. However, I am a big fan of self-compassion itself and think it’s uses do outweigh some of the flaws I felt in the book.