Publishers Weekly
05/09/2022
The ideas of French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir ground the advice in this thoughtful guide by philosopher Cleary (Existentialism and Romantic Love). To be authentic as de Beauvoir understood it, Cleary suggests, one must “create our essence through our choices” and think critically about “mystifications,” or the common cultural narratives that shape how people view and interpret the world: “It can be exceedingly difficult to tease apart what is influenced by outside forces and what one authentically wants.” Cleary updates de Beauvoir’s critique of instant gratification for the digital era, lambasting “fast fashion, slot machines, social media feeds” for providing fleeting satisfaction that leads to enduring discontentment, and she urges readers to instead “take control of our own projects so that we can be free to create our own happiness.” References to Lizzo and The Good Place help make de Beauvoir’s jargon-heavy philosophy accessible to lay readers, but some of Cleary’s colloquialisms might elicit some groans (“Gouges foresaw that the haters were going to hate”). This lucid introduction to de Beauvoir and existentialism has some worthwhile insights. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
Sits at the intersection of biography, philosophy, and self-help, yet it transcends all three. Cleary successfully fuses philosophical analysis, personal insight, and cultural commentary….How to Be Authentic is fresh, new, and prescient.”—Rebecca Brenner Graham, Los Angeles Review of Books
"A glorious guide to life."—The Independent (Ireland)
"This lucid introduction to de Beauvoir and existentialism has some worthwhile insights."—Publishers Weekly
“Being authentic is not a matter of book learning, but certain books—the best ones—can clear a way for us to live a little more honestly and fully. This is one of them... Cleary allows Beauvoir to speak to our age and dares us, repeatedly, to become who we are.” —John Kaag, author of Hiking with Nietzsche and Sick Souls, Healthy Minds
“As engaging and entertaining as it is thought provoking and serious. In her characteristically accessible and intimate style, Cleary takes us on a fascinating journey in search of the true meaning of authenticity, clearing away as she proceeds many of the tired clichés about ‘being oneself’ or ‘finding oneself’. Cleary’s focus in this book is feminism from an existentialist perspective. She explores what it is for women to achieve authenticity in today’s complex world.” —Gary Cox PhD, author of How to Be an Existentialist and The Existentialist’s Guide
“This timely book is a guide to living authentically and intentionally in a chaotic world. Cleary is a modern-day Simone de Beauvoir, drawing on Beauvoir’s important canon of work but going beyond to offer practical lessons for creating the existence that you truly want. If there’s just one authentic choice you can make today, buy this book!” —Scott Barry Kaufman, author of Transcend, and Host of The Psychology Podcast
Library Journal
06/01/2022
Simone de Beauvoir's philosophy has lately fallen out of fashion, but Cleary (Existentialism and Romantic Love) is interested in showing her as a thinker in her own right, whose ethics are a guide for life. For Beauvoir, authentic living is a matter of creating oneself by one's own free choices rather than striving toward some idealized image. Two principles guide this process: that one may transcend one's physical and social state by being for oneself, and that genuine freedom depends on our being for one another. The latter marks Beauvoir as a distinctive and innovative ethical thinker among existentialist philosophers. Focusing on the mutuality found in friendship, romance, marriage, and parenting, Cleary navigates between shoals of objectifying the other and losing oneself by trying to find meaning in that other. She then outlines the dispositions and structures that thwart authenticity and must be thrown off. Cleary celebrates Beauvoir as a woman who rebelled against the structures she confronted, but also criticizes her inability to see those we now confront. VERDICT Cleary brings a modern and neglected voice in applied ethics to a level that readers have recently seen with Aristotle and the Stoics.—James Wetherbee
Kirkus Reviews
2022-03-22
Can a person try to be authentic?
Contrary to its popular characterization, existentialism has never been a philosophy of darkness and despair. Its preoccupation with death is better understood as the background that enables a passionate embrace of life. What, after all, is more life-affirming than the notion that a person can, within certain limits, make of herself what she will—that we can all be, in Simone de Beauvoir’s phrase, “poets of our own lives”? As in her previous books Existentialism and Romantic Love and How To Live a Good Life, philosopher Cleary investigates existentialism as part of a long tradition of individual empowerment. Centered around the life and writings of Beauvoir, Cleary’s latest offers life advice so practical that at times it can be difficult to tell the philosophical from the common-sensical. What Cleary and Beauvoir ask us to do is, first, acknowledge facticity—that is, the givens of our life (where and when we were born, and so on)—and, second, exercise our freedom to take responsibility for everything else: who we are and what we do. The challenges lie in the application of this framework. In chapters devoted to marriage, aging, death, and the like, Cleary shows what it entails to take Beauvoir seriously. Some of the most moving passages in the book involve the author assessing her own life in these terms. In the chapter on self-sabotage, she describes turning “down being a guest on an important podcast because I’m afraid I won’t know what to say, or the words won’t come to me, or I’ll forget important points, or I’ll just sound stupid.” How refreshing to read a philosopher who achieves such vulnerability. Critical readers may object to Cleary’s overly broad conception of facticity and her superhero-strong sense of agency, but if they are wise, they will note these objections and then proceed to the business of taking good advice where they find it.
An informative book that inspires readers toward their authentic selves.
