Originally released in 1994, I can completely understand why it would have been so influential at not only that time, but in the decades following. bell examines how the emotional health of black women is wounded by daily assaults of racism and sexism, and then empowers Black women to do the necessary healing to rebuild their inner worlds. I imagine it has helped countless women over the past 30 years.

While the intended audience for this book is Black women, I would still encourage my fellow white women to listen to the words of bell hooks.

Her direct and approachable writing names the truth of the Black woman’s lived experience, which has many universal truths for all women, but will also challenge all of us to examine our own biases about whiteness and illuminate the importance of healing and liberation.

Adenrele Ojo does a wonderful job of narrating bell hooks' influential writing.

***Thank you to Tantor Audio for providing me with the audiobook for free via NetGalley for an unbiased review.

bell hooks never disappoints! Granted, this is only the second book I have read by bell hooks, but I am still blown away every single time. Even though this is the second edition of Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery, everything in this text is still very relevant (unfortunately). For the most part, this text has aged very well (with parts here and there about the gender binary and queerness that would probably need tweaking).

As a Black woman, this text touched me in many ways, expected and unexpected. I loved how bell hooks always manages to grip me with concepts rooted in the academic and based on her lived experience. This is what makes her content so relatable and digestible for readers of all backgrounds. She writes for Black women in mind.

This was not your typical self-help book. There were practical things that Black women could do to connect to themselves, each other, and their communities, however the presentation isn’t in your typical self-help fashion. There are no cliches, no toxic positivity. It is a Black woman getting real with us, using her own life as examples and making sure to reinforce that she isn’t perfect.

I took so many notes. So many things from all the chapters stood out to me. I wanted to make sure I held on to them to use in my own journey to self-actualization.

I always pay attention to the narrators of audiobooks, especially in nonfiction. I pay attention to how I feel as if the narrator is encapsulating the essence of the author. Can they capture the voice that is on the page? For the author of this book, I thought she did a great job engaging with both the text and the listener in a way that portrayed the heart of the book.

Overall, I will always recommend bell hooks. It can be difficult to find bell hooks’ work on audio, but I love that there is an effort to make her books more accessible to all.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tantor Audio for access to the audiobook of Sisters of the Yam by bell hooks in exchange for an honest review.

CW: discussions of racism/systemic racism/oppression, sexism, misogyny, intergenerational trauma, domestic abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, addiction, disordered eating, fatphobia

Originally published in 1998, Sisters of the Yam was a revolutionary book of its time; a self-help book written by a Black woman for Black women and anyone who cares to learn more about the lived experience of Black women, particularly in America. With beautiful prose and poise, Sisters of the Yam offers hope and empathy, while also uplifting and critically analyzing other noted Black women authors such as Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker.

I am finding so much comfort in the writings of Black women during the politically tumultuous time we find ourselves in. The heaviness, righteous anger and conviction with which bell hooks writes about hers and her sisters struggle to be heard and seen as Black women in America is convicting and I stand in solidarity with these brave souls who dare to keep living in a culture that has so deprived them of their humanity. bell hooks speaks about not only the difficulties of being Black in America, but also helpful ways in which those harmful lived experiences can be combatted with small, daily practices of hope, spirituality, community, and health. With this book, hooks propelled the genre of self help into public consciousness and encouraged Black women in particular to own their own health in a world that has systemically denied them that privilege. In this book, there is also challenge to white feminist sisters to help to change the systems of oppression from the inside. I listened with compassion and desire for change as hooks spoke about therapeutic spaces and how they have historically been inhospitable to the Black experience and impeded healing. I hope that continuing to read works like this will render me a more competent and compassionate therapist who changes the reality of what therapeutic healing can look like for Black women.

Most compelling was the addition of a transcript of an interview conducted with bell hooks several years after Sisters of the Yam's original publication. Hearing hooks meta-analyze the impact of this book and discuss its continued relevance was a treat and further contextualized the importance of this book.

I highly recommend this book to any woman who is looking to deepen their practice of anti-racism and intersectional feminism.

While I'm not the intended audience for this book, I absolutely enjoyed it. Her writing style is fluid, and she always combines topics in novel and intriguing ways for me. I was more interested in Bell Hooks' historical/social analysis of fascism in her books, but the way it was combined with the necessity of self-care and personal healing in this book was a fresh aspect of things I hadn't considered before.

SISTERS OF THE YAM: Black Women and Self-Recovery by bell hooks was my first book by her and it was amazing! This book was originally published in 1994 and I listened to the audiobook of the second edition which came out in 2005 narrated by Adenrele Ojo. This book is still extremely relevant today. She discusses how Black women are assaulted by racism and sexism and how their emotional health suffers. She also offers insights and strategies on how Black women can empower themselves. This is a daily practice that is still needed in 2022. I loved the addition of the interview with hooks at the end. I’m so eager to read more of her work now.
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Thank you to Tantor Audio via NetGalley for my ALC!