Do you ever read a book that feels like it was written for you specifically? Yeah that’s how I felt about this book. (This review is gonna be a bit long and get a bit personal)

Gift economies and the practice of creating community has been on the forefront of my mind over the last year and a half. I was so fortunate to spend the last year in a grad program that had its cornerstone in participatory methods and really centered community. We were there to learn not just academically but also to learn from one another in a uniquely global setting (with course mates representing 62 countries!). As I head back for graduation in few weeks, this book feels especially timely. I’m so excited to be back with the community that gave me so much and loved me so freely and I want them to know how much that love and friendship really meant to me. As RWK says, their gifts made me want to keep giving, both directly and indirectly.

So many parts of this book recalled my specific experiences. When RWK talks about the sound of happy voices in the berry patch, I thought of the time my friend I were on a walk and discovered wild cherries in our local park. We picked and ate so many cherries and then spent the whole rest of the afternoon giggling and running around and just feeing so much joy. It truly was a gift that nature gave us and the berries were the sweetest I have ever tasted. And later that summer, a group of friends and I went blackberry picking in the fields behind our campus. The berry stained hands of my friends in the light of the late afternoon sun is forever etched in my memory. We made jam together and made sure to leave the extra jars in the study space for anyone to partake. And the study space always had plenty of communal food - on any given day you could find snacks or home baked treats left out for anyone to enjoy.

Even academically the messages in this book reflected my learning. RWK mentions Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics - One of my course mates created a reading group where each week we read one chapter of Doughnut Economics and one person would volunteer to lead a lunchtime discussion about the main takeaways. Not only was it a great way to learn the material, but it also was such a gift that so many of my peers volunteered their time to create a space for reflection and discussion.

The passages in the Serviceberry that talked about manufactured scarcity reflected specific conversations I had with professors, down to the examples of water and rainfall that RWK provides. And in my classes about political ecology, we discussed the problems with conservation programs that seek to quantify ecosystem services. RWK captured that whole class in a single paragraph: “there is no room in these equations for the…ineffable riches of a forest filled with birdsong. Where is the value of a butterfly whose species has prospered for millennia and lives nowhere else on the planet? There’s no formula complex enough to hold the birthplace of stories.”

This book is powerful because of how concise it is. In a world that tries to tell you that changing systems is complex and difficult, RWK reminds you that building community is actually quite simple. Whether this is new information, or a familiar refrain, this book is a reminder that we can create the world we want to live in. We can create communities that prioritize reciprocity and care. We can center abundance.

All flourishing is mutual 💚

This is what a holiday romcom should be. The characters? Immaculate. THE PINING? There is sooooo much pining. 🫦 The humour? Perfection. The narrator? Natalie Naudus can do no wrong.

Never have I read a series where at 90% through the final book I was still unable to predict how it would end.

EOTV and Damned both had me in a chokehold from page one, and while I did find parts of Dawn’s narration slow-paced, it pays off in an epic, nail-biting conclusion that left me silently screaming into my hands and staring at the ceiling.

I greatly admire the style of storytelling Kristoff employed throughout the series. His success lies in understanding the delicate balance between fun, confusion and heartbreak, treating the reader not as an external 3rd party as other authors do, but writing the reader into the story in such a way that you directly interact with it.

Let’s do it again!