I loved how Thom essentially said, “sometimes interfering is good, actually, especially when it prevents yet another person from committing suicide”.
The essay on suicide and bodily autonomy in the trans community was fantastic and particularly brilliant. It was a really beautiful, heartfelt essay. I loved reading about how Thom manages to fit her culture and her culture’s expectations into her life, and how her family has adapted. It was one of my favourite chapters, and something that is very important to talk about. There’s one essay where Thom talks about transitioning in a culture that has very strong gender roles and how complicated that can be. These two essays were particularly standout to me: There were a lot of really important topics discussed in this book. I just think that some of her messages could have come across stronger had they been framed differently. Thom has a lot of interesting, important things to say, and I very much appreciate her perspective. This book had a lot of good and a lot of bad, and that’s the conclusion I’ve come to. I have a lot of thoughts on this book, so please bear with my while I try to form them into some semblance of a review. Taking its cues from contemporary thought leaders in the transformative justice movement such as adrienne maree brown and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, this provocative book is a call for nuance in a time of political polarization, for healing in a time of justice, and for love in an apocalypse. With the author’s characteristic eloquence and honesty, I Hope We Choose Love proposes heartfelt solutions on the topics of violence, complicity, family, vengeance, and forgiveness. In a heartbreaking yet hopeful collection of personal essays and prose poems, blending the confessional, political, and literary, Kai Cheng Thom dives deep into the questions that haunt social movements today. What can we hope for at the end of the world? What can we trust in when community has broken our hearts? What would it mean to pursue justice without violence? How can we love in the absence of faith?
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