Ultimately, a very disappointing read. The pros: •Encourages you to ask a lot of questions about non-profits, charity, mutual aid, community, yourself, and worklife in general. While I disagreed with many of the conclusions or implications of Spade, I am always very pro-asking questions, and this has some good prompts.

•Some very apt criticisms of "the work" as it is currently being done, including in charity, nonprofit, and mutual aid spheres.

•Some good reminders/points about not burning out, qualities to look for, and some basic 101 organizing tips.

The cons: •Spade has created this binary between mutual aid work and charity and then more or less asserts that all charity work is flawed, corrupted, and should be avoided. As Spade goes on to detail his tips and tricks on how to have a successful mutual aid group I failed to see a meaningful distinction between his definition of mutual aid and a well run non-profit.

It's true that non-profits are often beholden to grantor demands on how money is used, and it is also true that there are a plethora of non-profits that are actively harming and maintaining status quo. However, the things that make a mutual aid group run well, according to Spade, are the same things that make a non-profit group run well. A non-profit truly committed to the work they signed up to do would not accept grants that require them to do work outside of that scope, and/or would find creative ways to stay true to their mission. I do not see this as meaningfully different from other groups likewise having to navigate the many directions they will be pulled through the course of their work.

•There are a lot of the hallmarks of white supremacy culture through out these pages, despite a stated desire to move away from the dominant culture. We see a heavy emphasis on well structured meetings as defined by clear agendas, strict adherence to schedules, narrow margins of time management, and how to introduce newcomers to the work. In particular, I am irked by the emphasis on strict timetables and the consistent use of the word "flake/y." I think this was unintentional, but the vibe I ended up with is there is little room for disabled relation to time. There are a few lines here and there about compassion, flexibility, meeting ones own needs, of course, but it lacks a consistent understanding of how people will differently relate to time and established schedules, and how integrating into the work differs depending on such considerations. Meaning, it very much feels like Spade would consider someone with chronic fatigue to be a flake and unreliable, instead of someone who needs to link up with the group different than their able-bodied counterparts.

•In line with this, I found the section on compulsory work versus joyful work to be mostly a list of characteristics that mirror dominant culture, and are entirely subjective - and potentially harmful. For example, stating that compulsory work is working on multiple things at the same time and joyful work is working one thing at a time leaves no room for neurodivergent people who struggle with under stimulation and genuinely do their best work when multitasking.

•Also see any of the characteristics relating to emotion; they all are prescriptive and enforce dominant culture views on emotions, instead of allowing space for people to do "the work" because they are angry, upset, etc. etc.

•I will never prescribe to a framework that insists folks should only engage in mutual aid/community work for free whilst we exist within a capitalistic society. I had a hard time with the section on avoiding burn out and all the points about making sure people are resting/connecting with loved ones/not doing too much when Spade kept asserting that people should not be engaging with this work as a way to pay the bills. It felt very off to me to give pointers on how to avoid burn out while also clearly establishing people should be showing up for this community work after they clock out of their bill-paying job.

There is more I could dive into, but I think this paints the picture well enough. I wanted more community/small group focused, too, but this deals mostly in theory. Which is fine, but not really that useful for me. I don't think this book is worth avoiding, but I would say if you don't have the capacity to read a lot of books I don't think I would recommend you taking time on this one.