137. My Gender Workbook by Kate Bornstein

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Bornstein, Kate. My Gender Workbook. New York, NY: Routledge, 1998. Print.

292 pages

Reviewed by Jess d'Artagnan Love

In Kate Bornstein’s My Gender Workbook, the author’s goal is to help readers discover their own gender identity. The book includes journal prompts along with an in-depth discussion of what gender is, and what it means in a larger societal context. Bornstein provides several different models of gender that address the intersecting concepts of gender, power, and sexuality.

I thought the more academic part of the workbook was well done. It was thorough, thoughtful, and based on sound academic research on gender and what it means to have a gender identity.

The workbook part of the book was clearly biased toward readers choosing to not identify as any gender at all. The journal prompts and questions in the quizzes were leading and lead readers toward agender or non-binary identity. They almost make someone feel guilty for choosing a more stereotypical gender identity and make the claim that those who want to maintain a more common cultural construct of gender is misinformed and naive about gender. I don’t agree with that position. I hold the position that all gender identities are good identities whether they are non-traditional or not.

Aside from the obvious bias toward agender/nonbinary identity, the book was an interesting and though-provoking read and I enjoyed it.

Would I read it again? 

Yes, I think this is a book that I will continue to learn and be inspired from the more I read it.

Recommended for

Those interested in gender identity politics and gender studies.

Not Recommended for

Readers under the age of 15, mostly because some of the content may be hard for them to comprehend.

Word Bank

·         None

3 stars out of 5

Kate Bronstein’s Website: http://katebornstein.com/

Kate Bornstein on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5854.Kate_Bornstein

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117. "Help Yourself" by Dave Pelzer

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Pelzer, Dave. Help Yourself: Finding Hope, Courage and Happiness. New York: Plume Books, 2001.

218 pages

Reviewed by J. d'Artagnan Love

Most people know Dave Pelzer's most famous work, A Child Called It. Dave experienced one of the most severe documented cases of child abuse and neglect in United States history. I was interested in reading this particular book because of curiosity about the concept of resilience discussed ad nauseam in developmental psychology research. Dave has experienced horrors from which few would recover, but seems to have become a moderately well adjusted, productive, and happy adult. I was curious to know how he got there and thus, picked up this book. 

In this book, Dave chronicles what he did to survive his situation, not just physically, but psychologically. He discusses how he manages his life now and the psychological significance of the trauma he experienced. His goal is an honorable one: an attempt to help others by sharing how he overcame and continues to overcome his childhood experiences. 

Perhaps I should not have been surprised to find that the strategies Dave uses and suggests in his book aren't ground breaking. The advice provided is the same advice found elsewhere in other self-help books and research. Keep a positive attitude. Practice forgiveness, not for the sake of the offender but for your own mental health. Practice self-reflection and take responsibility for your choices. Try to spend time helping others to get out of your own head. These are all valid options for improving a life but nothing new was really added to the conversation on resilience and trauma recovery. 

While it may seem so, I'm not terribly disappointed with this book. I'm sure it will be and is helpful to those who have never encountered these concepts before. For me, it fell flat because of the amount of exposure I've had to the ideas. Had I read this in high school before I became steeped in trauma research, it would have probably seemed ground breaking and inspiring to me then. Alas, that is not how my experience with this book was in reality though, and so I can't say I liked it all that much.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Readers with no experience or background on the topic of resilience and trauma recovery. It's a good "starter" book on the topic. 

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Readers with any previous background on the subject. The ideas are repeats of ideas already well known.

2 darts out of 5

109. "Hunger" by Roxane Gay

Gay, Roxane. Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body. New York: Harper Collins, 2017.

304 pages.

Reviewed by J. d'Artangnan Love

SYNOPSIS: Hunger is about Gay's experience with her fat body. Fat is used here not as an expletive but merely a descriptive word like "tall," and "short" are descriptive words. Gay explains her experience with food and fatness that, for her, stem from being raped as a child and not dealing with the trauma in a healthy way.

WHAT I LIKED: Roxane is incredibly brave to put herself out there in a memoir. It is clear that this book outlines the most vulnerable parts of herself. This is something not many people can do, and I certainly applaud her for this.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: I wanted to love this book. As a fat, disabled feminist myself, I REALLY wanted to love this book....but I didn't. I found the style to be unorganized, almost like a series of blog posts mushed together to form a book. Some of the themes also felt forced rather than occurring organically. I also feel like, maybe, she wasn't ready to write the book as she reacts VERY sensitively to any criticism of the work. Please note, I'm not criticizing her experience so much as her writing which was repetitive, clunky, and unorganized.

RECOMMEND FOR: I could see this being a great read for people with no experience reading memoirs. It could also be beneficial for people who don't mind the blog-style of chapters rather than unified work.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Honestly, if you want an honest, well-written look at living in a fat body, there are better memoirs out there.

3 starts out of 5

86. "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" by Patrick Lencioni

Lencioni, Patrick. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2002.

224 pages.

Reviewed by J. d’Artagnan Love

Dysfunctional teams are something I’m sure many of you have experienced. You know the team—at a meeting one member stares off into space, another makes rude or sarcastic comments and the leader seriously fumbles the entire agenda. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team seeks to identify and alleviate the problems that arise when building a team. Lencioni argues that the success of a company depends largely on how successfully its leadership team acts as a high functioning team.

The first dysfunction is lack of trust followed by several others such as focusing on individual success rather than team success, lack of commitment to decisions, and an absence of healthy conflict. All of these concepts are first illustrated with a story about a team in the Silicon Valley experiencing some major dysfunction. To fix the problem, the CEO steps down and the board of directors brings in Kathryn, a woman with years of experience in leadership in the automotive industry, to fix the problems. Readers follow Kathryn as she walks the team through the steps of fixing the five major dysfunctions of the team.

Lencioni breaks down his concepts clearly and while some might think the story a bit cheeky, I found it really helpful to see how the concepts might play out in an actual organization. As a leader myself, I’m going to put some of these concepts to use and see how it goes!

3 darts out of 5

This book is FOR people who: want to learn more about management and leadership skills, and who may be interested in Industrial/Organizational psychology.

This book is NOT FOR people who: want empirical studies and intense management theory.

69. "Enlightened-ish" by Gail Dickert

Dickert, Gail. Enlightened-ish: A Grief Memoir About Spiritual Awakening. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2013.

153 pages.

Reviewed by J. d'Artagnan Love

This is Gail Dickert's second book. She is an author, poet, blogger and activist. She is especially active in LGBT communities and advocates for former "ex-gays" and youth. Enlightened-ish is a memoir of her experience of awakening following the death of her father. Emphasizing that everyone's experience of spiritual awakening is uniquely his/her own, Dickert walks readers through a series of "Freedoms" that she learned on her own path. Woven in with descriptions of these "Freedoms," Dickert illustrates the grieving process she went through after the death of her father as well as her means of healing after witnessing a man's suicide.

There were several "Freedoms" that rang very true for me. The first point was in the chapter titled "The Freedom to Cuss." In this chapter Dickert dissects the idea that your body and soul must be separate and that your body, or the human condition, is an obstacle to spiritual awakening. It's true that we, especially in the west, separate our body and "soul" (however you may define that) as often competing entities. Our body has base, carnal needs that get in the way of spiritual purity. This leads us to believe we are imperfect and immoral from the start simply because we have bodies. Dickert is able to break this idea down and show why body and soul should not be considered competitors but teammates in the game of life.

The next chapter that stood out for me was one titled "The Freedom to Say 'Enough!'". Dickert breaks this Freedom down into several principles including being able to relinquish the need to do it all, the need to be seen and heard, the need to be right, the need to know, the need to rescue or be rescued, and the need to suffer (Dickert, 71). Relinquishing the need to rescue and be rescued was a principle that stood out for me as I lean towards being a rescuer in my personal life.

Finally the last chapter that reverberated for me was one title "The Freedom to Save Yourself." This chapter explores what it means to love yourself, forgive yourself, and be your own best friend. It touches on providing for your own emotional needs rather than expecting another person outside yourself to provide those needs for you.

These are just the chapters that touched my heart, but if you read the book yourself, you may find that several other chapters, entirely different from the few I've chosen here, speak to you personally. Because of the way individuality is emphasized in the text, you are free to take from this book whatever fits your own personal path. Nothing is prescribed; it is merely suggested as a possibility to open unexplored places in our heart and psyche. At the end of each chapter, Dickert provides some workbook pages in which discussion questions are provided to help readers connect the reading to their own experience. In this way, Dickert's story helps readers to open themselves to their own stories of grief and awakening.

4 darts out of 5
Bookshelf Project Status: KEEP

66. "Women Food and God" by Geneen Roth

Roth, Geneen. Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything. New York: Scribner, 2010.

211 pages.

Reviewed by J. d'Artagnan Love

Roth writes, "On the first morning of my retreats, I tell my students that the great blessing of their lives is their relationships with food" (27). In Women Food and God, Roth explains that everything we know about ourselves and our lives can be unlocked by breaking down our relationship with food. Her target audience is individuals who struggle with disordered eating whether they binge eat or starve. Her approach to healing from disordered eating boils down to being kind to yourself. 

Roth's approach to healing from disordered eating draws from the Buddhist practice of mindfulness and the practice of inquiry. Both of the practices involve living fully in one's body rather than caving to your incessant brain chatter. In the inquiry process one is to ask what they are feeling in their body. Is it a burning sensation? How big is it? Is it moving? Does it have a color? A shape? The goal is that in doing this, a person will learn to listen to the needs of his/her body rather than just eating on auto-pilot. When we listen to the needs of our body and eat when we are hungry, when hungry eat exactly what our body is telling us we need, and stop when we are full, Roth argues, that our weight will level out to our "natural body weight" and the battles that take place in our hearts over food will come to a stop. 

Roth's work is compelling and applicable even for individuals who don't necessarily suffer from disordered eating. Her practices are outlined in easy-to-implement steps that would benefit anyone wanting to get in better touch with their bodies. Interestingly, she points out that when we are able to get in touch with our bodies we are also more easily able to access the part of ourselves many conceptualize as "souls," "God," "Buddha nature," or "consciousness." The book is not specific to any religion or creed but is instead a good practice of psychological health. I certainly recommend this to anyone interested in self-improvement!

4.5 darts out of 5

Bookshelf Project Status: KEEP

d'Artagnan

48. "Narcissistic Lovers" by Cynthia Zayn and Kevin Dibble

Zayn, Cynthia and Dibble, Kevin. Narcissistic Lovers: How to Cope, Recover and Move On. New Horizon Press, 2007. Ebook

224 pages

Reviewed by J. d’Artagnan Love

Narcissistic Lovers explains what Narcissistic Personality Disorder is and provides examples of narcissistic relationships. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is different from common uses of the term "narcissism." It is a pervasive, destructive disorder that is often at the root of abuse Each chapter of this book describes a different aspect of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and provides real-life examples.

One of this book’s strengths is its accessibility. Readers involved with a narcissistic relationship will easily be able to recognize the red flags in the scenarios provided in this book. Narcissistic Lovers is clear, and easy to understand which makes it very accessible. Sometimes books about personality disorders can become mired in psychology research and fail to explain things in a way that is easy for most people without psychology degrees to understand. This is not one of those books. The writers use solid psychological research but they explain the research in a way that is easy to comprehend.

Along with explaining what narcissism is and providing examples of narcissistic relationships, the book offers help to those who are stuck in one of these relationships. It is no replacement for psychotherapy or work with a mental health professional but it does offer a victim of narcissism some breathing room—a chance to step back and say “Ok, I get it now.”

5 darts out of 5
Bookshelf project status: KEEP

40. "The Buddha and The Borderline" by Kiera Van Gelder

Van Gelder, Kiera. The Buddha and the Borderline: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder Through Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Buddhism and Online Dating. Oakland: New Harbinger Publications, Inc., 2010. Print.

236 pages

Reviewed by J. d’Artagnan Love

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), according to the Buddha and the Borderline, is one of the most difficult personality disorders to treat. This is in part because of the nature of the disorder itself, but also because of stigmas and prejudice within the mental health system.

There is much debate about whether the disorder even exists and pat of what Kiera Van Gelder experiences, is the struggle to validate her disease in the medical community. Kiera tells her story in a very intimate and clear way. She describes her pain, her constant shifts in identity, and her unquenchable need for reassurance and validation with accurate attention to detail.

Van Gelder provides her readers with sources and references works throughout the text of her memoir. It truly gives her credibility as a writer and it also offers others reading the book—those who may struggle with BPD or know someone who does—other places to turn. This is one of the greatest aspects of this work. Van Gelder validates for herself and others, that BPD does exist, that is a painful and difficult mental illness, and that there are treatments available that can help.

The problem is that people might have to jump through hundreds of hoops, go through countless unhelpful and even damaging counselors, and group therapies, and psychiatrist, before finding the right kind of treatment, just as Van Gelder does. Because the disorder is so debated within the mental health field, it makes finding treatment and help that much more difficult for those who suffer from BPD.

I found this book to be a beautiful and enlightening portrait of one woman’s struggles and successes in living with Borderline Personality Disorder.

5 darts out of 5
Bookshelf Project Status: KEEP