GIVING LOVE A NEW DEFINITION: A BOOK REVIEW

“The word love is most often defined as a noun, yet imagine how we would all love better if we used it as a verb,” is a quote that will forever be embedded into my brain after reading Bell Hooks’ memoir All About Love. I used to view love as a very simple and somewhat natural concept, but I've grown to learn that it is far more complex. I still believe that you are born to love, born to devote your entire existence to loving yourself and those around you. I don’t believe that anyone is incapable of  love, rather, I believe that they are lacking the tools to love properly. Everything we do, we do for love ,even some of the harshest acts, can be due to love.

Every single one of us is vulnerable. Vulnerable in the sense that no matter how many barriers someone has put up for themselves, love will always find a way to seep through and dig its way into our hearts. When it eventually does get through (because it will) it cannot help itself from taking over in all the ways you didn’t know you needed. Healing you, enabling you to be content within yourself, being loved. To be loved is to be healed, to be loved is to be understood and to be loved is to be heard. Love is when you are seen in all the things someone holds dear  in this world. When people search for the little parts of you in everyone they meet. Love is giving someone the power to destroy you, and trusting that they don’t. You cannot love without putting your trust in another, and as hard as that may seem to some, you will never learn what it means to truly love another without letting go. Letting go and trusting yourself to be salvaged by everything good that love has to offer.

As I said before, love takes the form of nature. It is infinite and takes an effortless presence in all of our lives. I say infinite because as I’ve come to realize, truly loving someone is loving someone under absolutely zero conditions. It's the kind of love that you openly bestow. It isn't determined by what you get in return. All you want is to watch them succeed in all things important in life, even if it means that you are watching from the sidelines. Love is like a river. It benefits millions in a number of ways, most importantly, the survival of plants, animals, and people. The river is oblivious to this fact, yet naturally, it continues to flow. This is what it means to love unconditionally. From one being whose very nature is to set conditions, to love without them is to sacrifice one's ego with no expected transaction. Love seems to be the only organic emotion to supersede survival.

All About Love offers a very restorative exploration of what it means to truly feel complete. Bell Hooks demonstrates that being concise and comprehensive doesn't have to conflict with one another; rather, they can be coherent and simple to read. Anyone who wants to live life more freely and create happy and healthy relationships—not just romantic ones, but also platonic and familial—should read more about love. This is because when you give love your own definition, it makes it all that easier. It demonstrates how love is intertwined in both our private and public lives, offering radical new perspectives on the concept of love. Hooks describes how early life experiences shape our everyday ideas about what it means to give and receive love, and how these ideas frequently let us down. She stresses the role of love in putting a stop to conflicts amongst people, and gives a rethinking of self-love that will bring peace and compassion to our personal and professional life. Pioneering and inventive, Hooks portrays  how love, the foundation of forgiveness and compassion, has the capacity to triumph over shame, and may mend the scars we suffer from as people.

“A generous heart is always open, always ready to receive our goings and comings. In the midst of such love we need never fear abandonment. This is the most precious gift true love offers - the experience of knowing we always belong.” 

—Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions

All it takes is one person.

It will always outweigh the bad. 

Guest Essay

By Farah Saabneh

Published January 29, 2025