RaveLos Angeles Review of BooksSkye C. Cleary’s How to Be Authentic: Simone de Beauvoir and the Quest for Fulfillment explores Simone de Beauvoir’s ideas of existential authenticity and applies them to life today...The book 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...Cleary’s blend of contemporary, personal, and philosophical analysis parallels much of Beauvoir’s own work...Both works center lived experience, including aging, parenting, and marriage...Cleary integrates race and racism into her analysis throughout the book...She quotes, among others, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Patricia Hill Collins, and Koa Beck...Some of these women critiqued Beauvoir’s white feminism...Cleary’s How to Be Authentic is fresh, new, and prescient...She explores the COVID-19 pandemic, including vaccinations, hashtag activism, the murder of George Floyd and the global response, social media generally, and modern workplace struggles, all through the lens of Beauvoir’s philosophy.
