I went into this book knowing it'd be good. But, since it's largely marketed towards people who have only recently realised they're autistic, I didn't think it would be a game changer for me. I was so very, very wrong. 
 
This book helped me realise, (and bear with me coz this a mouthful), that what I thought was me unmasking over the past few years, was actually just me creating new masks based on how I thought unmasked autistics were “meant” to act/want/feel…(which honestly made me feel ripped off as fuck!)

I came to this understanding through the Values-Based Integration Process (VBIP) activities woven throughout the book. These activities were immaculately integrated into the text. Usually, in books that have “homework”, I’ll think to myself, “yeah, this sounds like a cool/useful thing to do”. I might even take a picture of it or write it in my phone notes. And then I will never think about it. Ever again.
 
Unmasking Autism was different for 2 reasons. First, Price spreads the VBIP tasks out through the text, and he holds you accountable to them. These are things you kind of *have* to do to be able to continue through the book. 
 
And second, Price does the activities himself right alongside you, and discusses its responses. He gives you a reference point and practical examples.
 
I remember initially feeling frustrated by the first task. I thought I was doing it wrong, because I didn’t think my responses were consistent with what was expected, appropriate or acceptable. But Price discussing his own approach to the task immediately changed that, by providing a frame of reference. It made the task accessible and achievable, instead of just instructing me to do some…abstract thing, and leaving me to figure out the rest.

Through this careful, considered balance between theory and practice, I realised that I’d been stifling all the ways I express my core values. Or, at least, the ways of expressing them that I found the most joy in. And immediately, so much tension, so much intrapersonal conflict and confusion, made sense. 

 

Because while I knew I was autistic, I had not reconciled this with the fact that I’d spent my whole life being taught to make myself as small as possible. Taught that I shouldn’t be loud or visible, and to feel deep shame if I ever was. Taught to tiptoe through life, careful not to offend anyone with my indigeneity, queerness, fatness, poorness, disabledness, etc. 

 

So, when I finally accepted that I was autistic, I relegated myself to a persona that was palatable in its invisibility: quiet, reserved, isolated, anti-social, avoidant. There’s nothing wrong with any of these qualities. They’re just, most of the time, not me. 

 

I still have a long way to go in navigating my love for being unapologetically loud and visible in a world largely insistent on my silence. (Or that, at best, only permits my visibility on its terms.) But this book helped me start a process of realigning myself with what I truly care about and want to do and be. And it helped me give myself permission to not just do or be those things in private.

(Review originally posted on Instagram)

Colouring the Rainbow is both deeply healing and deeply triggering. It is raw and it is real. And with this, it brings raw, real, queer Blak pain. But it also brings raw, real, queer Blak sovereignty, love, care, and power.

This book is shamelessly messy, contradictory, and imperfect. It doesn’t try to sacrifice people’s self-presentations for the sake of representing community as neat or cohesive. It refuses to succumb to the colonial myth that communities must be definable, unified, and palatable to be deserving of visibility, and to be taken seriously. In fact, it argues that the messiness of queer Blak identities is a central and essential part of understanding and knowing queer Blak experiences.

Colouring the Rainbow also refuses to construct Blak queerness using a tidy, clear, linear timeline – another expectation often forced upon Blackfullas by the colony to receive any recognition or validation. The result is a deeply sovereign queer Blak “fuck you” to the colony. A refusal to cling to hope that the colony’s ever-shifting goalposts may ever be in reach. And a commitment instead just to be.

I am so grateful that this book exists. I needed it so bad. There were so many wars being waged on and within my body that this book brought aid to. It didn’t necessarily end all of them, but the ones that it didn’t, it made make sense. It did this by mapping countless rich queer Blak relations – frameworks, points of reference, ways of knowing and being – from which I could navigate my place in the world. And in doing so, it took power away from pain and returned it to me.

I will always, actively and wholly, feel (and know, and be) the gifts this book gave me.

(Review originally posted on Instagram)

I read this book in one sitting, heaving, blubbering, and bawling through most of it. There are a couple of reasons for this – both the speed-reading and the sobbing.
 
Black and Blue was impossible to put down, first and foremost, because of phenomenal storytelling. The language was clear, concise, and accessible, making the book so easy and pleasant to glide through, even though the subject matter was gruelling. The chapters were short and digestible, but also often ended on cliff-hangers – so it would’ve been easy for me to pause wherever without getting overwhelmed, but I also couldn’t bring myself to stop. And I didn’t want to.
 
Ronnie’s storytelling reads just like a mob yarn. It’s accessible to, but very clearly not written for a non-Blak audience. Ronnie doesn’t waste time coddling the white reader, nor trying to define the incommensurable. Her delivery is direct and unapologetic, with no concern for whether you ‘get’ it – those who do will, and those who won’t aren’t her responsibility to hand-hold.
 
The other reason I sped through Black and Blue was because of the subject matter. While Ronnie never dwells on horrific scenes for the sake of shock value, speaking her reality necessitates discussion of deeply distressing experiences. I knew that this book would be incredibly triggering for me, so I read it in a day partly to look after myself – to minimise how long I spent in a trauma response state.
 
You might be wondering why I chose to read a book that I knew would activate a trauma response for me. And it's because I knew that Ronnie's truth-telling would also be equally as healing. I often cried during this book as gruesome details of violence were recounted. But I also bawled my eyes out when Ronnie perfectly articulated mob experiences I'd never been able to put into words before. And because she generously taught me so much about experiences I'll never personally know. And because I was overwhelmed by the gratitude I felt for being permitted to read her story.

l've had some mob ask me if I think Black and Blue would be okay for them to read. Unfortunately, I cannot answer this question. I can only recommend reading up on the trigger warnings before going into it, assessing whether thev're personally manageable for you, and proceeding with great care and caution. But what I can definitively tell you is that, for me, reading Black and Blue made me feel held as much as hurt.

(Review initially posted on instagram)

If I had to describe this book in one word, it would be…unrelenting. Luckily, I don’t have to describe it in one word. I have 2200 characters to work with.
 
I loved this book, aggressively. And when I say aggressively, I mean: this book got me riled the fuck up. This book makes me feel things that I can only compare to watching The Real Housewives of Sydney. As in, the instalment of Real Housewives that was cancelled after the first season because it went too far – something I didn’t think was possible for the franchise.
 
I’m obviously being facetious here, but there is some truth to it! AMR is unflinching. She brings to this book an audacity that is often only permitted for, say…filthy rich white women who can start shit for the sake of entertainment without ever having to worry about the repercussions.
 
But AMR’s passion could never be mistaken for that of a filthy rich white woman. Her unapologetically direct writing epitomises Blackfulla storytelling. It is unmistakable, refreshing, and healing. It is palpably grounded in cultural Law, knowledge, and relationality, meaning she never lets you forget who and what she’s writing for.
 
Of course, saying I could ‘only compare’ this book to watching RHoS was also a load of shit. I think every Blackfulla knows the feeling of watching a staunch, sovereign Blak woman put the colony and its agents in their place. It is an intoxicating combination of excitement, fear, love, and pride. That’s what I felt during every damn word of this book.

One small caveat: I write this as someone who both studied and taught Indigenous Cultures and Histories in a tertiary setting. I acknowledge that this book is very dense, and that my capacity to understand it doesn’t make inaccessible academic writing okay.

I try not to speak in absolutes, but social media isn’t particularly conducive to nuance. I think this is a big both/and situation – this book is incredible, and, simultaneously, the fact that it’s not accessible for many of the mob who it speaks of and for is an issue that needs to be highlighted.

(Review originally posted on instagram)

I cannot rate this book. My feelings towards it are too complex. It’s 0 stars, 5 stars, and everywhere in between, all at once.
 
My biggest qualm with All About Love is that the core premise conflates love with ‘wellness’, ‘health’, and ‘sanity’. With this, hooks labels behaviours, beliefs and systems that subjugate and obstruct love, like capitalist greed, dishonesty, and dogma, as ‘madness’, ‘psychosis’, and similarly pathologising and sanist language and ideas.
 
With this conflation underpinning the book’s core argument, I had a really difficult time enjoying it, even when I appreciated other parts of it. Hooks also almost exclusively cites psychoanalysts throughout the text, which is…definitely related! And equally disconcerting.
 
I similarly struggled with other aspects of the book. For e.g., in instances where hooks named behaviours/belief systems that she states oppose love, acknowledging their operationalisation in social institutions of power and control, only to shun individual community members for succumbing to them. Drug dealers, drug users, liars (of ANY magnitude), and people who cut off abusive family members were among those hooks claimed were inherently anti-love.
 
Each argument made was an absolute, with little room for flexibility or nuance. While I appreciate hooks’ unrelenting staunchness, this got to a point that often bordered on dogmatic, making for a really uncomfortable read at times.
 
That said, this book was also expansive and revolutionary, rich in deep wisdom, care, and vulnerability. I adored a lot of the commentary on community care, and challenging normative relationship and family structures (though this was later somewhat undermined by a very cishetero and mononormative discussion on romantic love). I also enjoyed much of hooks’ broad, inclusive, polytheistic approach to religion, and her conversations around death.
 
I know a lot of people love this book, and for good reason. I personally found it to be such an internally polarising read, though. And even now, months later, I just cannot put a number to my feelings towards it.

(Review initially posted on Instagram)