Publishers Weekly
04/04/2022
Whitewashed wellness culture gets a withering critique in this fiery debut by yoga teacher Kelly. Calling wellness “extreme materialism masquerading as a spiritual practice,” she suggests that the commodification of South Asian and Indigenous American mind-body traditions dilutes them and continues colonization’s legacy of injustice. Kelly traces the roots of wellness’s concern with attaining a “healthy” and “normal” body back to early eugenicists, finding that wellness places the “moral imperative” for health on the individual despite research showing “things like poverty, racism, and violence influence our well-being far more than individual behaviors.” The author also debunks the myth that fatness means ill health, drawing on studies that contest the relationship between BMI and chronic disease. Activities encourage readers to get involved in mutual aid, examine their “proximity to power and privilege,” and form community activism groups. With a crusader’s spirit and an activist’s mindset, Kelly joins a bounty of historical, sociological, and medical evidence in an informed understanding of how injustices intersect under the banner of wellness. Anyone interested in a more equitable approach to alternative medicine should read this. (June)
From the Publisher
"With a crusader’s spirit and an activist’s mindset, Kelly joins a bounty of historical, sociological, and medical evidence in an informed understanding of how injustices intersect under the banner of wellness. Anyone interested in a more equitable approach to alternative medicine should read this."
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"An intimate, honest, accountable, and thorough invitation into healing."
—adrienne maree brown, author of Pleasure Activism
"American Detox is not only a wake-up call but a call to remember that if some of us aren’t well, none of us are well."
—MICHELLE C. JOHNSON, author of Finding Refuge
A magnificent gem of a book that anyone who cares about healing, wellness, health care, justice, democracy, anti-racism, equality, and inner or outer peace must read."
—LISSA RANKIN, MD, New York Times best-selling author of Mind Over Medicine
"Urgent and unflinching."
—NICOLE CARDOZA, founder of Reclamation Ventures, author, and magician
"This book is a powerhouse."
—ASHLEY JUDD, American actress and political activist
"A brilliant call for the reimagining of what it means to be well in our world."
—TARA BRACH, author of Trusting the Gold
"American Detox [reminds] us that we cannot purchase our way into well-being. It is built of the materials of interconnectedness and belonging, and without them we can’t manifest the highest form of wellness which is humanity’s wholeness."
—SONYA RENEE TAYLOR, author of the New York Times best seller, The Body Is Not an Apology
"Kerri Kelly is radically committed to our well-being by teaching us how to 'be well'—within ourselves and with one another.”
—LAYLA F. SAAD, New York Times best-selling author of Me and White Supremacy
"American Detox is a blueprint for collective wellness, from an activist and healer who walks the walk with integrity, grace, and a revolutionary love."
—VALARIE KAUR, Sikh activist and best-selling author of See No Stranger
"This book offers the reframe that is needed in a culture desperately seeking wellness and perfection while being bankrupt of the remembrance of our inherent wholeness."
—TRACEE STANLEY, best-selling author of Radiant Rest
"Kerri, with her trademark dedication to fierce and honest self-examination, holds both herself and the culture of wellness accountable for the social dis-ease that continues to segregate health among its diverse citizenry."
—SEANE CORN, author of Revolution of the Soul
"This book is a valiant, brave, and timely compass and tool that we need right now as so many navigate the often wild, predatory, and ailing space of the so-called wellness industry."
— OCTAVIA RAHEEM, founder of Starshine & Clay, a meditation and yoga studio for Black women and women of color, and author of Pause, Rest, Be
"... a call-to-action to improve the wellness of our communities and the world at large, too."
—SAH D’SIMONE, spiritual revolutionary and best-selling author of 5-Minute Daily Meditations
