All About Love, Bell Hooks, 1999
I picked this book up with the intention to find answers for why love keeps failing me, believing mostly that there is some deep root within myself that I have yet to straighten. While I’ll say this read did provide me some understanding and reframe, I will also say a big takeaway from this book is that I am not the biggest fan of Bell Hooks’ approach to nonfiction. Let’s get into it.
We’ll go through the introduction and 13 chapters, some of which felt informative and some of which I could only skim through for how disconnected from the topic they felt.
Introduction
The introduction had me convinced I was in for a ride of intentional healing. A few things are called out in the introduction alone. Hooks talks about feeling like a first heartbreak was “spellbound” over her. How exciting—the feeling of complete immersion in heartbreak is perfectly aligned with why I sought out a book of this sort. She admits to a phase of hers in which she believed true love doesn’t exist, which changed when she learned to allow simple things such as childlike drawings on walls to show the truth that love is rudimentary to surviving. It’s a detriment to love that society equates a desire for love as being irrational and hopelessly romantic, rather than intellectually interested in bettering the self and world. Facts, no?
Chapter One “Clarity: Give Love Words”
The first chapter seeks to de-mystify the definition of love. Hooks claims that love is an action, not a feeling, and that it should be framed as such. If one considers love as an action, they will be intentional in pursuing it. The action of love also implies choice, which is talked about in chapter ten.
Childhood is a big piece of this chapter, and is returned to as a main point in the book. It seems that Hooks’ big claim is that love is determined by the way it is experienced as children. Children misinterpret love because they are taught that love can be violent, angry, possessive, and even abusive in our violent, angry, power-dominated homes.
Chapter Two “Justice: Childhood Love Lessons”
Further, we accept abuse in adult relationships because in childhood we were taught we can be hit or neglected and still be loved. Without knowledge of this psychology, it would take a book of this sort for someone in an abusive relationship to recognize this. Her point strengthens by explaining that a father may not be able to give love if he was never taught to accept love—this give/receive (explored again in “Mututality”) is an important takeaway, though I do wish Hooks was more explicit in declaring that all people who did not receive love in youth must unlearn that way of living before believing they can give love as adults (specifically as potential parents). Hooks does not provide solutions on how to undress this, though maybe that is obvious: therapy, intentional vulnerability, and a whole lot of self-work.
Chapter Three “Honesty: Be True To Love”
My favorite chapter of the bunch—this one provided insight on my own role in my failed attempts at receiving love. Hooks talks about lying, and the different forms lying takes according to gender.
Women are expected to lie. You guys! We are expected to lie so precisely and so consistently that we don’t even understand that we are lying. I believe I am a very honest person—this is because I have no issue with being vulnerable and I am very rarely “fake” about friends and gossip. This chapter demanded I pause and reflect on my own position in relationships I have felt lovelessness in, and I am seeing that holy shit, I am a major freaking liar.
We are taught to be docile, to be agreeable, to be simple. I’d even argue we are taught to be unintelligent. So we lie. You know the tumblr “yeah I’m fine” with a sad face visual, but also there’s “yeah I don’t mind seeing that movie,” and “yeah I’m open to going here for dinner,” and “yeah 5pm is fine.” Most detrimental is our consistent refrain from calling out red flags for fear of seeming too astute, too picky, too fixated, too unforgiving.
Hooks makes a groundbreaking point about how since women are taught to lie about their emotions, they tend to feel alienated from their inner selves. This was very validating, and is resonant enough that it demands change. It labels the agent for the issue—lying to those we want to accept love from—and allows us to choose being intentional about honesty moving forward. I’ll put this point to rest now because I could write another page about it, but in the case that special eyes are reading this, let it be known I take accountability for my dishonesty in past relationships as a large piece for why I didn’t feel adequately heard and loved.
But Hooks doesn’t let the boys off the hook either! While women are taught to lie in order to fulfill their role in patriarchy, men do so MUCH more directly (this I can attest to also). Men are taught to lie to subordinate women—lying asserts power, and power fits them in patriarchy. An ex of mine was intentional in not playing into patriarchy, but he was consistently lying about his intentions and by doing so, exactly reproducing a patriarchal dynamic. Hooks makes a point in Freudian Psychology about how before understanding patriarchy, young boys see the world through their mother’s eyes; once the boy realizes he has been raised by a woman who has no power in patriarchy, he becomes angry and takes up lying as a way to assert power over his mother. This continues onto all women with whom he has deep relations.
Generally, Hooks’ point about lying is that a blockage is inserted by doing so. There is no go-around. Love can not seep through. Foundationally, truthfulness is the most important part of romantic love. This is the crux of the entire book, and if you take nothing away from it, please do take this.
Chapter Four “Commitment: Let Love Be Love In Me” (idk what that title is about)
This chapter also has merit, talking about self-love, self-esteem, and self-assertiveness, all critical in being receptive to love. Their connection to commitment, which may be a stretch but still rings true, is that they all equate a commitment to the self, and that commitment is vital in committing to healthy romantic love. Hooks roots these things to childhood, in that girls are often taught that to be confrontational is to be unfeminine; her point is that in healthy love, truthful confrontations are healthy and healing, and you need self-love, esteem, and assertiveness to exact truthful confrontation.
The point most resonant with me from this chapter is that sometimes in the workplace women pretend to be self loving and assertive, because the workplace warrants a different register of behavior, being male-dominated more times than not. Women then feel alienated from their feelings at work, making work often feel unnatural or unfit.
Chapter Five “Spirituality: Divine Love”
Feel free to skip Chapter Five. Lol. It feels unspecific, geared toward general love rather than romantic love which is most of the content up until this point. The switch feels unfocused.
The chapter also feels inverted. While previous chapters root issues with love to their cause in childhood, this one speaks from future, claiming that spirituality will open you up to love. It is clear that Hooks, as a spiritual person, felt compelled to include a chapter on spirituality in her deliberation on love, as it is deeply personal to her, though it may be slightly imposing, and it isn’t backed by research. It would have helped to have clear examples of how spirituality connects to love, or maybe some pragmatic sensibility about it, but the chapter doesn’t provide new information, and is hard to stand if you don’t feel connected to spirituality of your own.
Chapter Six “Values: Living By A Love Ethic”
Again, redundant. She reiterates her points about commitment being a foundational piece of love. The chapter’s main angle is that she talks about the culture of love which presumes that knowledge and communication take away the mystification of it, making it less pleasurable—she claims this isn’t true.
Chapter Seven “Greed: Simply Love”
I had trouble getting through this chapter. It goes on a tangent about greed, consumerism, and addiction, using a clinical tone that isn’t consistent with the tone of previous chapters—all valid in their own right, and could be interesting if they were delivered with more intention and place. Her point is that the world of consumerism supports an endless state of craving and dissatisfaction. At the end of the chapter we get to the solution, that living simply—out of excess—equals loving simply. I do enjoy this point; I just think it could have been gotten to in half the amount of words.
Chapter Eight “Community: Loving Communion”
The main point I picked up is that love is connection, and being in community is a great way to practice connection. But then the chapter goes into the family home and how community is practiced in extended families, and though I do see the tie to love, it again feels tangential.
I liked a little point about rethinking loneliness as solitude so that way we can sit in our loneliness as a place for positive reflection rather than feeling like it is something that can only be healed by using other people
.
Chapter Nine “Mutuality: The Heart of Love”
This chapter supports the idea that to be in a healthy love, the values shared must be mutual, specifically revoking a desire for power in gender difference. She points to how tenderness can coexist within an ultimate desire for power, being the agent in building it; that, she says, is why men who seek power can easily deny their own agendas and believe they are engaging in love.
I put a list of six movies to choose from in front of an ex of mine, who added one movie to the list. When I told him to choose, he looked at me dumbfoundedly and said “well I want to watch mine.” This speaks to Hooks’ point about how we live in an age of narcissism, and the one thing that can fix every love is to put your lover’s interests as equal to your own. She also says this narcissism makes it so people don’t fully accept others, and therefore can not fully love. She specifically brings up gift-giving within this topic, which rings personally for me, as I was with someone who had a hard time accepting gifts. Hooks says that to accept gifts, we have to be comfortable with giving gifts, but the normalized narcissism and selfishness of our time makes the average person apprehensive to give.
A smaller note within this chapter is the point that marrying someone similar to the parent who didn’t show you love is common; in this fantasy, you can get love from that person. The connection to mutuality is that if you didn’t receive mutual love and respect from a parent, you will seek it from someone similar to them.
Chapter Ten “Romance: Sweet Love”
This is the chapter a lot of us pick up the book for. I did learn about myself from it. Hooks starts by talking about the “false self” put on in adulthood when we are taught that we’re worthless in childhood. Reiterating what is explored in the chapter on lying, this “false self” creates dissonance and eventual disappointment. People fall in love with the false self, but it isn’t true.
In this chapter she talks about the fantasy of “falling in love” as being choiceless. Hooks is adamant that love should be a choice, requiring intention & promise.
Hooks eats with other points in this chapter also. For one, we need to understand ourselves to fully give into love, so that way our subconscious can’t underlie our conscious (ex, I call you out here lovingly). She also says our language over love will foreshadow what happens in our love (this one my ex could call me out for), and that real love is a commitment to growing ourselves. She then talks about perfect passion versus perfect love, where one is short lived and grounded in a very particular pleasure, and one is forever and grounded in a real soul connection. I like the way she defines a soul connection as responding to the beauty of another’s nature.
Chapter Eleven “Loss: Loving into Life and Death”
Also feels tangential. My big takeaway was one resonant point about how a loveless life feels like death.
Chapter Twelve “Healing: Redemptive Love”
It offered solutions to lovelessness, though it felt more like a summary of the key points from other chapters, or even slightly truistic—living in the present; living for community instead of self-advantage; finding like-minded souls; finding forgiveness (this one is noted as most important); and living simply.
Chapter Thirteen “Destiny: When Angels Speak of Love”
This last chapter was a bit insufferable. It was very close to the chapter on Spirituality in that it felt too personal to the author, and not objective enough for a self-help book. She writes a few pages on the story of Jacob in the Bible, who knew love after hardship—did not hold my interest for the purpose of understanding my issue with love.
As a literature gal, I did enjoy her explanation for the aesthetic obsession with angels in that love is close to childhood.
Lastly, there’s also a thing about not believing ourselves worthy of love if we live with shame, and I think that’s a good way to end the book because it will allow an earnest reader who carries shame to recognize their next step is to heal it.
Overall
Summarized, I would recommend this book to someone who has very little psychological insight on childhood and receptivity to love. With that being said, I will likely not pick up another book by Bell Hooks, and I do think it would be conducive in my own healing journey to pick up a different self-help book of this same scope, written by somebody else. It would be a great insult for me to say this book felt somewhat lazily done, but I would like something with a more serious and clinical feel rather than personal and so self-purported. There wasn’t much research to back up many of Hooks’ points, and her excessive inclusions of personal experience came off to me as that she is too close to her emotions and pride in recovering from unhealthy love to be credible in objectively understanding the experiences of love for people different from herself.
Maybe I’m wild for this, but I’m gonna give it a 2.5/5. Worth it for $17, not sure, but you can borrow my copy! It is not something I will ever reference.
