I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

“Self-love is a survival skill, not a luxury for the privileged.”

Please note that I am a white queer reviewer and that this book’s audience is primarily QTBIPOC readers.

Decolonizing Wellness is a wonderful book full of healing messages for all marginalized people working to unpack the damage done by heteropatriarchal white supremacy and to move past. Dalia Kinsey writes with insight and compassion on a variety of topics, with a focus on self-love and body liberation.

The final chapter, which focus on honoring your ancestors’ dreams of freedom, felt especially liberatory to me, especially as it introduced me to the idea of chosen ancestors. I’m going to be thinking about that chapter for a long time, I think.

While some of the information presented in this book felt a bit basic as someone who has already been on a decolonization journey, I don’t think I’ve encountered another published book that would serve as an introduction to body liberation as well as this one does. 

I did have some minor issues with the language used in this book at certain points. It was the sort of thing that I see online—like the use of the meaningless term “femme-identifying” in an effort to be inclusive when other language would have been more precise—but I think it’s worth noting that Kinsey’s approach to certain issues is occasionally somewhat imprecise and messy.

Overall, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has been failed by mainstream discussions of wellness. I’m also delighted to learn that the author has a podcast and will definitely be checking it out!