Real talk: I do not practice yoga, nor have I read Jessamyn Stanley’s first book.

However, I enjoyed Yoke. It’s a collection of essays that discuss more than yoga: spirituality, making mistakes, capitalism, cultural appropriation, racism, and body image. I would recommend for those looking to reflect on their own yoga practice or to be more mindful of how yoga is practiced by others.

Yoke is for everyone, but particularly those of us who question yoga in America. Jessamyn Stanley digs deep into the problematic cultural appropriation of yoga, while explaining what yoga can be, and is for her, as a black, queer, fat American yoga teacher and influencer. She isn't lecturing; she's exploring life and how yoga, meditation, tarot, weed, all the things, can make life better. Stanley writes beautifully, and her descriptions are often hilarious - something about certain yoga poses feeling about as good as eating cat food on a cracker sticks in my mind. This is a book I want to come back to again and again, re-exploring chapters to inspire me to re-connect to myself.

I don't really feel like she had a book here, but I liked her voice and since her first book was mentioned so much, it inspired me to read that one as I found myself only wanting to hear how she came to yoga, and she'd clearly already written that book.

I had the opportunity to review an eARC of this book thanks to #NetGalley. I am certainly not the target audience for this book as a white, middle aged, hetero, reader. Never the less, she had a message of self-acceptance I valued. I needed to hear her complaints about the white American yoga community to work on my own blind spots. Her explanations of mind-body integration and the broad meaning of prana were fantastic.
Her language is quite coarse and gratuitously peppered with f-bombs which would influence who I would recommend the book to and her descriptions of marijuana use as part of a yoga and meditative practice were not my cup of tea.
At times she shifted topics quickly and unexpectedly making some parts of the book harder to connect to broader ideas. I do not regret reading this book, but I would be hesitant to recommend it to other people in my life for the reasons listed above.

Jessamyn Stanley is a yoga teacher who speaks frequently about the intersections in her life of yoga, being black, being fat, being queer, even smoking pot - and most people think of yoga as a world where not all of those things intersect. She is blunt, which could turn people off, but it's her style, and true honesty about the challenges she has faced, and that other black yogis and fat yogis can face too. This book is needed in the yoga world. Yogis who are supposedly "concerned" about the lack of diversity in yoga's world should read this to learn one's experience.

Yoke was a read that hit my soul in the perfect ways. The author provides details from their own personal life connected to the practice of yoga, emphasizing that it is not simply a one-size-fits-all exercise; the mindset is arguably more important than the physicality, and all bodies are welcome. Yoke is going to be my new go-to recommendation for anyone who wants to try the practice of yoga, or even just wants to reconnect with their own bodies and minds.

I've been a fan of Jessamyn Stanley for several years. I believe it was seeing an image of her when I didn't know her name. Then I saw her on Good Morning, America and was thrilled to finally learn her identity and follow her on social media. She has that kind of fame in the yoga world already and it happened fast.

When I read her first book, Every Body Yoga, I was a little disappointed in my own expectations. I thought it was going to be a book about how to get into yoga postures regardless of one's size or shape. That ended up being only a small part of the book. It was a memoir which I was happy and curious to read. She bares all.

I had to wonder what could be left to tell about her history when I read the summary for Yoke and to paraphrase -- EBY tells us how to do yoga and Yoke tells us why -- I felt more confident in what the book would deliver. It is gloriously real and inviting.

Jessamyn Stanley does not shy away from vocabulary. She is fat, black, and queer. All terms she uses with complete openness. She invites others to stop seeing fatness as bad or not beautiful. There aren't trigger warnings anywhere, but if you're memoir reader, allow this review to be that warning for you. In EBY, she revealed unfortunate history regarding sexuality, sexual assault, and feelings of confusion about what women are supposed to control in their own bodies. In Yoke, she tells a couple of stories that I wish were unbelievable, but they are sadly, too relatable and easily believable. Even this person I see as a celebrity still gets assaulted and it keeps happening! You can tell by her own words that she is shocked it keeps happening and snowballs into self doubt, embarrassment, and shame.

In my opinion, Yoke should be required reading in all western (re: not in the Middle East, South Asian, or Far East Asia) yoga teacher trainings. I got more out of Yoke with its chapter introductions of Swami Satchidananda's sutras and Stanley's authentic lessons about her yoga journey than I did from reading the tome of B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. While Patanjali is considered the source of yoga training, what we need in today's world is to hear from voices like Stanley who struggle against self-doubt, body positivity, equality, racism, misogynoir, homophobia, and white supremacy in yoga. Yeah, even in yoga all that shit is still there and Stanley points it out.

Oh, you think we're all part of the greater Wholeness of the Universal Energy so race doesn't matter? Ha! There are still classes filled with mostly white women and specifically thin, able-bodied, white women (who can afford to be there). Like Stanley, I was the only fatty in my yoga teacher training. I was also from a poorer area of New Jersey unlike my Princeton suburb classmates. But, our teacher was a fierce, black Haitian woman with endless energy who gave us her all. I wish Jessamyn Stanley had had a teacher like mine.

This does bring up how yoga has historically had a guru-student relationship and that we should not deify our teachers. Outside of Stanley's book with her own personal stories of being let down by what goes on in the yoga classroom, there are people like Bikram, Iyengar, and others who abuse their power and abuse their students. Stanley does discuss the Jivamukti yoga film her class watched during teacher training. She was the only one to call out Jivamukti's founders, Sharon Gannon and David Life, for perpetuating the unhealthy racism with their western pastiche of South Asian culture. Stanley said they "managed to roll all the most annoying parts of American yoga culture into one video."

Gurus and teachers can let you down.

Like in EBY, Stanley shares her heritage with the Baha'i Faith and how she noticed that it too, despite it's interracial tolerance, was still homophobic. No matter what subject Stanley introduced, readers are going to get cold hard lessons on reality about what's considered progressive.

Yoke is well-organized and weaves the sanctity of yoga into the modern world and how it has affected Stanley's adult life. There's a saying in yoga: the pose (asana) you least want to do is the pose you should do. The same can be said for addressing what ills the yoga industries. If you don't want to discuss racism and fatphobia, then you're probably the one who needs to hear that conversation from the people who are targeted. Her chapter on meditation is invaluable. She begins by saying she never thought she would meditate and now it's a part of her daily routine. 

Yoke ends with Stanley discussing her marijuana usage. She isn't preachy about it. She admits it's not for everyone, but it helps with her yoga by calming her mind. There are sweet stories about her grandmothers and how different they are, yet they have their own type of magic that they bring to the world. That's more of the point than go get high. It's about the need people have when they come to yoga to be who they are meant to be without any mask.

Rating: 5 stars

Definitely not your average yoga book! I loved Jessamyn's unique take on yoga, religion, spirituality, body positivity, race and just life in general. Her sense of humor is amazing! A great read for anyone looking for a little more.

No matter what form of yoga you practice, you'll enjoy Jessamyn Stanley's new book, Yoke, These funny, honest, insightful essays will resonate deeply and inspire you to look at yoga from some new perspectives. I loved this beautiful book and spending time with Ms. Stanley!

I have not read Jessamyn's other book but I have followed her on Instagram ever since I heard about her from the Unladylike podcast. I loved this book so much, as it was unique as yoga books go. Jessamyn was honest and funny, writing in a way that I felt like I was talking to a friend. She dove into personal topics and hard topics which I really appreciated. I will definitely be checking out her other book soon and I can't wait to see what other content she releases!

This book is about the intersection of yoga and social justice, told as a memoir. As a stan for Jessamyn’s brand of irreverence, I was not let down by her storytelling. The chapters wove through different categories and themes that spoke to body image, queerness, being black, and being a yogi. Although it was about her journey there is much to reflect on in this memoir. The chapter art and lay out was well done.

Yoga means “to yoke” in Sanskrit, which translates to something like “union” in modern language. Body positive yoga practitioner and Instagram sensation Jessamyn Stanley takes this concept and explores what it looks like in everyday life off of the yoga mat, through personal essays about self-love, plant medicine, race, meditation, and more. She also discusses her personal journey towards becoming a yogini, dropping out of an MFA program at 25 to deepen her practice. Even more importantly, she discusses the mass cultural and capitalistic appropriation of yoga in the West and how our current understanding of what it means to do yoga revolves around consumerism, whiteness, punishment, and our obsession with the thin ideal.

This book will open your eyes, heart, and mind, regardless of your yoga practice, as she teaches that doing yoga is in fact synonymous for doing life.

I hate to be the first reviewer, even more so when I'm not about to gush how good a book is. Perhaps its my age, or I'm old fashioned and less drawn to chatty styled writings, It's not that I'm a slim, white, bendy yogi that's for sure, but I just didn't connect with the author's voice for some reason, perhaps it's cultural as well as an age difference (assumed) or perhaps I'm just having a less tolerant menopausal week! What the author had to say about yoga practice though was good, as were the quotes, but I wasn't hooked by the in between, her life, the conversational approach. I hoped I'd enjoy it given it's description about everyday yoga and learning lessons from tough moments, but a mistake on my part probably given hints in this description also to the content of f bombs. I'm grateful to Netgalley, publisher and author for the digital copy in exchange for my honest review.