Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this blistering blend of memoir and cultural criticism, novelist Róisín (Like a Bird) traces her path to healing as an abuse survivor and takes an unsparing look at the appropriation and corruption of Eastern spiritual practices for Western audiences. Róisín's childhood was marred by her mother's unpredictable and violent behavior, and as an adult, those painful memories long went unprocessed. Her healing process, she writes, involved understanding intergenerational trauma and recognizing how it has a physical effect on one's body, and how interconnected the mind and the body are. Alongside her personal story, Róisín explains how the "wellness industrial complex" works as "a modern arm of imperialism" as "whiteness and capital have... relegat caring for oneself as a privilege." Meditation, for instane, has been "divorce... from its spiritual roots," and while "meditation came from my people," she writes, she learned about it "through white people's interpretation." Ultimately, Róisín's answer to the question her title poses is that "wellness isn't for anyone if it isn't for everyone," and through vivid writing and striking curiosity, she makes a solid case for making it so. This profoundly enriching survey nails it. Agent: Monika Woods, Triangle House. (June)
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Review by Library Journal Review
In a work that is both memoir and documentary, artist and writer Róisín (Like a Bird) interrogates the extraction and commodification of wellness modalities from their Indigenous practitioners by white capitalist societies. This book deplores the practice of making these modalities palatable to a white audience by divorcing them from the spiritualism of their Indigenous practitioners and by pricing these modalities beyond the means of many BIPOC people who would benefit from them. Róisín narrates her own work herself, which brings an intimacy and intensity that insists the listener reexamine the global cost of unrestrained capitalism and biopiracy. She employs a standard American modulation and speaking style. This book is recommended for those interested in BIPOC issues and work by BIPOC writers and thinkers. VERDICT It would also be of interest to survivors of abuse and feelings of alienation or those wanting to learn about the impact of capitalism on the ecologies of non-Western nations.--David Faucheux
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
An exploration of the ways in which the wellness industry simultaneously commoditizes non-White cultures and renders services inaccessible to marginalized peoples. Róisín, a freelance writer who was raised Muslim by Bengali parents in Australia, frames the book with the question: "If [wellness] was for someone like me, pilfered from my very own culture, then why couldn't I afford it?" Seeking to answer this question and others, the author divides the narrative into four sections--mind, body, self-care, and justice--each of which weaves a specific aspect of health care in with Róisín's personal experiences. In the section on the mind, for example, the author interrogates how her abusive mother's lack of access to therapy passed on intergenerational mental trauma. During her healing process, Róisín began practicing meditation, which she later found out had been divorced from its ancient Indian roots to make it more palatable to Western nations and easier to commodify in a capitalist society. In the section on the body, the author explores how her history as a survivor of sexual abuse instilled in her the harmful belief that her body was not actually her own. She then documents how a massage therapist who had previously helped her gain relief from the physical manifestations of abuse on her muscles violated her trust by callously discussing a highly publicized incest case in a moment when the author sought refuge from the triggering news cycles. Ultimately, Róisín calls for a more sustainable, equitable approach to healing. Only occasionally dense, the author's prose is engaging, and she delves into her past with vulnerability and self-compassion. The book is deeply researched and laudably includes the work of a variety of Black and Indigenous scholars to make a unique and relevant case for the need for greater accessibility to healing. A vulnerable, intensely trenchant analysis of the ways capitalism denies wellness for so many around the world. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
