The author of How to Keep House While Drowning returns with a new book on relationships. I follow KC Davis on TikTok and listen to her podcast, so I was already familiar with her ability to meet people where they are, and her ability to reflect on her own life. Her book is like listening to her speak through a video or podcast. It is like listening to a good friend who knows you well but isn't afraid to give you tough love.

Written with a neurodivergent audience in mind, both the font, and the format are designed to help the reader get the most out of the book no matter their situation. The book is short, and I read the first 25% over coffee and while riding an exercise bike, so it's not an overly challenging read. The challenge comes when we are doing the work of self-healing. But readers will find this book to be accepting of their circumstances and one that gives a helpful nudge when we are stuck.

I highly recommend this book for therapists, libraries, and doctors' offices.

I heard about KC Davis on a podcast, and it felt like she just ‘got’ me… leading me to purchase her first book, How to Keep House While Drowning, which I chose as an audiobook so I could revisit her advice whenever needed.

When I learned she was releasing a new book, Who Deserves Your Love, I was soooooo excited! I was fortunate to receive an early release copy through NetGalley, and I eagerly anticipate purchasing the audiobook upon its release.

This book is a valuable resource for anyone navigating relationships. This book offers practical tips, reflection questions, end-of-chapter recaps, and, most notably, a relationship decision tree to aid in making informed choices. The material is presented in an easy-to-understand manner, making it accessible to all readers.

Who Deserves Your Love is a wonderful guide for assessing how much of ourselves to invest in relationships and recognizing when it might be time to step back.

Thank you to NetGalley & Simon Element

Once again, KC Davis tears apart my mind as a I knew it and made it a functional little space. She says in the beginning of Who Deserves Your Love that there wouldn’t be a bunch of direct one liners to change your life. Yet I was highlighting every other sentence.

This book held so much emotional weight that it took me longer than expected to get through- in a good way! I took my time and allowed myself to feel, process, learn and heal. So grateful to have gotten to read this early. I will be applying so much of Mrs. Davis’ wisdom to my own life and already have felt a shift in some of my relationships and the way I perceive them.

The writing is phenomenal. I could hear her witty and sometimes sarcastic tone through out the entire book. It felt like we were sitting down and having a conversation together.


So thankful for this ARC copy!

Posted on Goodreads and my Instagram @the.therapists.bookshelf

“Let’s start with I was gifted this book as an advanced reader copy. I am also a licensed marriage and family therapist. I thought this book was wonderful and the material was easy to to understand. I can’t wait to recommend this book to so many of my clients who I think will be able to very quickly absorb the information and support our work in therapy. This book is a beautiful love letter to the relational work that I love so much. thank you to KC and the team at Simon & Schuster for the early copy! I have already recommended this to colleagues to preorder!”

Overall, it was okay, alright. Not the greatest but also truth be told not the worst, I fairly enjoyed the read that this gave me but I felt like I really didn’t learn much out of this it helped open some of my thoughts but not to the point that I was like “ahhh”, it’s alright, possibly won’t read it again in the future though.

This was... ok. I felt like it could've touched more on different forms of trauma/abuse, and how it plays into the vulnerability cycle. I felt like much of it was oriented on marital relationships (wife, husband, children, mental load, household chores). To each their own! However, it just wasn't for me. The decision tree was a helpful tool, as was the people pleasing chapter.
Overall, it was ok and had some insightful moments but for the most part I felt like it was lacking.

As a fan of the author on TikTok, I was so excited to dive into this book.

The writing is so compelling - you can hear the authors voice in every page. It’s extremely easy to understand and digest. I read it in one evening!

It’s an intricate and practical look at relationships, community aligning your actions with your values, what we owe to ourselves, each other, and more.

It’s also an excellent reminder that the pros of practicing vulnerability and boundaries is often on the other side of discomfort. And you have to learn to regulate in the face of that discomfort

Not reinventing the wheel BUT:
1) The author’s explicit purpose is to help those without access to this type of information and
2) This book is so refreshing in the midst of a billion terrible pop-psychology books / psychological Dave Ramsey’s.

Overall a great book to help readers determine how much of themselves to give in a relationship and how to decide when its time to call it quits. Practical tips, reflection questions, end of chapter recaps, and (in my opinion, the most useful) a relationship decision tree that can be used to make choices in a relationship can be found here.

The only detractor from me was reading the line "Why Jonah Hill is a dick and other thoughts on boundaries." Jonah Hill misused the phrase boundaries (despite being open about his therapy experience) in place of what were effectively demands on his then romantic interest. For a book about empowering people, it's not necessary to disparage a person - using the specific behavior and speaking to why it's problematic and how to address it is enough.

Thanks to Simon Element for a copy via NetGalley.