there's a lot of good informative life-affirming stuff in here and it's a worthwhile collection. like another reviewer said it can be a little new-agey and some stuff felt more valuable to me than others. my favorite essays were "fuck you, pay me" and "pleasure over sixty"

this is carefully and wonderfully curated, but I had a hard time connecting fully with all of it. part of that is just that I was so unbelievably busy at work over the past few weeks. the pieces from contributors wound up being my favorite. I do appreciate and believe the philosophy of living a life that is centered on joy, compassion, love, and empathy, and I want to practice that more in my own day-to-day life.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful essential reading for all activists. This is a book that I’ve underlined and dogeared and that I know I’m going to return to again and again. It has helped me orient my activism away from despair, perfectionism, vengeance, and sacrifice, and towards the cultivation of joy and freedom.

My main reasons for not giving this five stars are, 1) I felt some of the essays could have been more fleshed out and more clearly answered the questions they posed, and 2) while I understand why sexual pleasure was so emphasized within the text, I think brown is working on an assumption that everybody is able to use sex as a touch point- so to speak- for understanding pleasure, which is simply not the case. I worry that this focus may make the book— and the field of pleasure activism— seem inaccessible to people on the ace spectrum. I would really love to see an asexual/aromantic take on pleasure activism: what unique joys and pleasures can be found beyond the pursuit of sexual and/or romantic companionship?

Lots of food for thought 

Revolutionary & relatable & fantastic! Might be my new favorite book.