I currently live at Twin Oaks, so this book is theoretically of great interest to me. I appreciated the bits of community history it filled in for me, but overall, I found it to be a surprisingly dull, dry read.

Komar falls into the common trap of believing she's nailed down exactly what's wrong with the community and how it needs to change. The more I become involved with communal living in various places, the more I come to realize that if any enduring community problems appear simple and easily fixed, it's because you don't have the whole picture.

I acknowledge the difficulty of what Komar took on with this writing project, and I find myself unable to recommend the book to anyone beyond the most hardcore commune history buff, to be read with a grain of salt. ( )