Anyone who has ever been involved in any kind of activism/organizing/leftist group can attest to the fact that those spaces can sometimes be incredibly rigid, unwelcoming, paranoid, and just depressing. This book is an attempt to ask why those spaces become that way and if there are better ways of organizing, better ways of trying to make the world better. I very much agree with the problems that they point out and the central ideas - That relationships are more important than ideology. That the everyday is crucial. That we need joy in what we are doing or we will fail. That we need to leave room for personal and collective transformation and not expect everyone to be exactly in the right place (as though we know what that is). If I were another type of person, I would probably give it another star. But I am at a place where I really want everything to be as plainly and succinctly stated as possible. I think it is my old age setting in. And I found myself skimming a lot of the repetitive and/or overly philosophical parts. (There was a lot of Spinoza.) Still, this is an important conversation to be having and worth a read.