Reviews and Comments

This is a book I've been trying to finish for the past 8 months because multiple, divergent woosurrectionists had recommended it as a "must read" and I wanted to both understand how this influenced their approach to feelings and dealing with conflict and resolution.

Definitely self-help, new-age through and through by a self-described empath, whose approach is: "You can be an empath too". Borrows a lot from unspecific indigenous world views and a bit of eastern world views maybe blended with a bit of paganism (or maybe taking from these cultures is the overlap I see).

I think all in all, it tries to break down big feels and emotions we have into chapters, tries to speak to their origins and what they are saying about your needs, and not other peoples. I feel like if you can approach it the same way you might approach marxist writing, or fierce individualist writing you can find thoughtful and reflective words in this book.

I did find there was moments were I found myself thinking that was well said, and at other points skimming and letting the words pass right through me.

Not sure If I'd recommend it, (I mean I didn't end up finishing it), but I think for the non-dogmatic person, who is comfortable reading somewhat problematic things and really is looking for a self-help words to your emotions book it could be apart of your larger readings on the subject.

This one was a pretty quick read. Definitely was drawn to it by some descriptions I saw online which sounded like it was about a bunch of tenants facing eviction when a new owner takes over a building and organizing to counter that.

while that is loosely what the book was about, it was more a collection of short stories each telling us a bit about a different tenant who was facing eviction from this building in Harlem and the organizing was pretty unimportant and marginal.

I am happy I read it but I felt like such an outsider to the experience of these mostly black proles in Harlem living in high rises that I don't feel like i have much to say that feels thoughtful or smart about the book. The book itself is smart if at times kind of making fun of things within the left like "pedagogy of the oppressed" and community organizing presenting them as pretty cringe caricatures.

This book was really awesome, I was most looking forward to this book for 2022. It did not disappoint.

being familiar with ME O'Brien's writing previously I was expecting an anti-state communist, luxury space communism environment with big trans vibes and it didn't disappoint. Probably more than half the interviews featured trans/agender/non-binary people and gender and it's practical abolition was a current throughout the book.

I also really appreciated the way they dealt with trauma, revolutions and capitalist crisis as violent and traumatic experiences and how people were living and building a new world while dealing with people broken people.

I thought it was thoughtful, choosing NYC as the setting and trying to modestly explore the global revolution but always linking it back to nyc so the project didn't get away from itself.

I had never read anything from Eman Abdelhadi before, but felt like you could really see bits of both the authors through their interviews and in the characters they are interviewing.

It's really a great book, at moments touching me and making me want to cry or laugh and taking me away to a vision of the world where the commodity form, capitalism and the state have been abolished almost the world over (sorry Australia, all the reactionaries, capitalism and fascists bunkered down there).