A review by thatsssorachael
The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence by Gavin de Becker

challenging dark informative sad slow-paced

2.0

I went into this book hoping to learn some new info about fear, intuition and how to protect myself as a woman. Instead I walked out with a tremendously bad taste in my mouth at the victim blaming specifically in the domestic violence chapter. Calling a victim of domestic violence a volunteer in the abuse because she didn’t leave is tone deaf, goes against all we know about DV and the power/control dynamics in an abusive relationship and doesn’t take into account the fact leaving a relationship takes a significant level of privilege. The main reasons someone does not leave are finances (especially as many abusers intentionally control the money), having nowhere to go or no one to turn to, and as complicated as it is, having children in the house makes it harder to leave even though we can all agree she SHOULD leave for them. It’s not as simple as De Becker wanted us to believe and as an expert in this field he should absolutely know that. 

The first 2 chapters were him advertising his firm. The entire book really came across as a humble brag, which is not why I wanted to read this book. The little bit of info I read about safety was mostly common sense and common knowledge. Since this book was written in 1997 and never updated, a lot of info was incorrect or irrelevant now. 

Not sure I’d recommend. 
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