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A review by rellimreads
Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey
1.0
I followed Hersey on Twitter for years & when I left that app - I picked right up following her on FB. I couldn’t be more sad about how much I believe in her message but how disappointed I am in this book.
This desperately needs an editor. It is so repetitive and disorganized. This reads like she took a year’s worth of social media posts and just placed them, in posting order, into a book. I might have been tempted to give it more stars if the price wasn’t a whopping $27 in paperback (ebook is also a hefty $14). Just over 200 pages that could have been cohesively presented in half that. Ironically, it’s a sign of the capitalism she fervently (and rightfully) rages against.
There are so many gems in here that are drowned out by the beating refrain of the words rest, grind culture, capitalism, and white supremacy.
Word counts:
rest = 814
resistance/resist = 223
grind/grind culture = 159
capitalism/capitalist = 148
white supremacy = 63
divine/divinity = 67
Some reviews commented that repetition is necessary so that people can truly understand the pervasiveness of these harmful constructs and form better habits. That would be great if this book was designed as a guidebook or laid out in such a way where readers were invited to slowly and consistently incorporate study, rest, meditation, connection, journaling, etc into their lives. That’s not what this is.
Look, I’m in full agreement with 99% of her assertions. But she doesn’t provide an ounce of (readily available) data to back them up.
Ok. So maybe it’s purely a manifesto. Not intended to prove anything to the reader - but a call to action. What action? Beyond “take a nap”. Yes, there is a small section that contains a very vague list of potential actions like: take a break from social media, build a comfy napping spot, and journal. None of this is ground breaking or presented in a unique way.
The best parts of this book are the stories she shares about herself and her family and their experiences with exhaustion or rest. There’s just not enough of them and the conclusions she sometimes draws are bizarre. Her father dies from having 2 full time jobs plus a ministry. His parishioners literally called on him day & night. Yet her conclusion is that she felt the divine in the crowd that gathered to mourn him. Where was the divine when this man was literally killing himself for their benefit? She shares another story of volunteering at her son’s school and how the system doesn’t let children go to the bathroom and kids are peeing on themselves because they aren’t physically capable of holding it. Yet she offers no insight into if or what she’s done to change the school’s policies.
Hersey talks about writing meditations but only offers a single example. She states in the book that she’s been actively researching and tweaking her meditations for over 10 years. This could have been such an amazing book full of prompts/guides on how to actually do that.
It makes my heart hurt how this opportunity and momentum were wasted.
Narration:
Hersey narrates this herself. Is it professional level, no. However it is enjoyable and her passion definitely shines through.
This desperately needs an editor. It is so repetitive and disorganized. This reads like she took a year’s worth of social media posts and just placed them, in posting order, into a book. I might have been tempted to give it more stars if the price wasn’t a whopping $27 in paperback (ebook is also a hefty $14). Just over 200 pages that could have been cohesively presented in half that. Ironically, it’s a sign of the capitalism she fervently (and rightfully) rages against.
There are so many gems in here that are drowned out by the beating refrain of the words rest, grind culture, capitalism, and white supremacy.
Word counts:
rest = 814
resistance/resist = 223
grind/grind culture = 159
capitalism/capitalist = 148
white supremacy = 63
divine/divinity = 67
Some reviews commented that repetition is necessary so that people can truly understand the pervasiveness of these harmful constructs and form better habits. That would be great if this book was designed as a guidebook or laid out in such a way where readers were invited to slowly and consistently incorporate study, rest, meditation, connection, journaling, etc into their lives. That’s not what this is.
Look, I’m in full agreement with 99% of her assertions. But she doesn’t provide an ounce of (readily available) data to back them up.
Ok. So maybe it’s purely a manifesto. Not intended to prove anything to the reader - but a call to action. What action? Beyond “take a nap”. Yes, there is a small section that contains a very vague list of potential actions like: take a break from social media, build a comfy napping spot, and journal. None of this is ground breaking or presented in a unique way.
The best parts of this book are the stories she shares about herself and her family and their experiences with exhaustion or rest. There’s just not enough of them and the conclusions she sometimes draws are bizarre. Her father dies from having 2 full time jobs plus a ministry. His parishioners literally called on him day & night. Yet her conclusion is that she felt the divine in the crowd that gathered to mourn him. Where was the divine when this man was literally killing himself for their benefit? She shares another story of volunteering at her son’s school and how the system doesn’t let children go to the bathroom and kids are peeing on themselves because they aren’t physically capable of holding it. Yet she offers no insight into if or what she’s done to change the school’s policies.
Hersey talks about writing meditations but only offers a single example. She states in the book that she’s been actively researching and tweaking her meditations for over 10 years. This could have been such an amazing book full of prompts/guides on how to actually do that.
It makes my heart hurt how this opportunity and momentum were wasted.
Narration:
Hersey narrates this herself. Is it professional level, no. However it is enjoyable and her passion definitely shines through.