Love in a F*cked-Up World is an expansive engagement with the axiom that “the personal is political,” riffing on the way in which the public and the private merge and emerge in our lives and placing romance as inherently political — and, hence, as a place for liberation and resistance. Written by trans-liberation, prison-abolition, and mutual-aid activist Dean Spade, the book has something for fellow activists and “soldiers of love” (cue Sade) alike. As someone who deals in revolution, it’s not surprising that he aims here to reconfigure the way we think about (and think in) relationships.

The book begins with Spade, an associate professor at the Seattle University School of Law, contextualizing the source of the vignettes he features: Many of the stories come from activist circles, where “it’s not surprising relationships develop between organizers.” However, some activists “find the courage to confront mainstream societal norms yet are unable to treat romantic partners with generosity and care.” But this isn’t a volume only for people “in the life.” Rather, Love in a F*cked-Up World positions relationships as “a site of transformation, expression, and community building.”

Spade doesn’t hold a particularly fond view of the current crop of relationship self-help books, characterizing them, I would argue, far too sweepingly as “outdated, often sexist ideas about sex and romance” with “very few that don’t focus on white, straight, upper-class people.” Yes, his book is quite different, but it’s not necessarily genre-bending, either. It is, he states, “for and about people who are motivated to collectively resist normative cultural expectations, one relationship at a time.”

But what does that resistance look like? For starters, it involves exploding the myth that “tells us that romantic relationships are the most important relationships in our lives and that they are the place where we become complete, satisfied, loved, and safe.” This myth has four tenets, which are all ripe for disruption:

• “A committed romantic or sexual relationship is the most important relationship.”
• “There is something wrong with you if you aren’t in one.”
• “Real love lasts forever.”
• “The right relationship will make you happy.”

Each chapter begins with a vignette and includes exercises and reflection questions. One motif that unites the topics is oscillation; Spade uses a pendulum analogy and diagrams to illustrate the back-and-forth nature of the concept. For example, there is the relationship dynamic wherein one person is demanding, while the other is distancing. Or, one is anxious, and the other is avoidant.

A major type of relational dynamic is fueled by early-childhood experiences (the Freudians may be muttering, “I told you so”). It often manifests in one of the most common patterns in a relationship: One person’s fear of abandonment is activated, causing the other’s fear of engulfment to kick in. Spade wants us to understand such patterns so we can recognize them in ourselves and others.

As mentioned, the book underscores the importance of creating all kinds of relationships, not just romantic ones. To help with that, Spade offers concrete exercises, some of which are reliant on the principles of nonviolent communication, which encourages us to share observations and feelings rather than accusations and generalizations. For example, saying, “You did not text me back, and I felt worried that you don’t want to hang out,” is more productive than stating, “You’re inconsiderate, and you don’t care about me as much as you care about you.”

(The book isn’t all seriousness and sobriety, though. I was chuckling at Spade’s description of “chasing that new relationship energy.”)

There are a couple ways in which Love in a F*cked-Up World defies the self-help norm. One is in its urging of us to get nuanced and get real. “We have to approach both our relationships with other people and our own healing with a humble outlook and reasonable expectations,” writes Spade. Just like the pendulum, our feelings swing, too, and we can’t expect “dramatic makeovers” or overnight transformations in ourselves or our relationships.

Another is in the way the book illustrates that the political impacts the personal. Structural forces indelibly affect our private lives; romance cannot be truly separate from politics. Resisting normative cultural expectations and rejecting cultural scripts is a way for all of us to be activists, one relationship at a time. As Spade reminds us:

“The romance myth is a lie. There is no happily-ever-after coming. There never was. Instead, there is the possibility of being here for what’s here. Of treating others and ourselves as well as we can.”