Arguing that care is a fundamental, everyday feature of human life, Joan Tronto sets out to develop a working definition of care that can be applied a practically both ethically and politically. Understanding care not as an emotion or abstract principle but rather as a practice, Tronto largely succeeds in crafting a compelling and useful theory of care. Recognizing care's potential to upset power hierarchies and to seismically change the political landscape, Tronto argues that care is a four phase, ongoing, reflexive, and embodied process. This is a crucial addition to the feminist care theory/ethics literature, and is a refreshing departure from other versions of care ethics which focusing on oppressive, anti-feminist understandings of care or care as a sentiment or abstract principle. Tronto argues that while marginalized folks have disproportionately been forced to care for the privileged, everyone can care, everyone needs care, and everyone should want to care.

My only critique is that Tronto seems bound to some notion of political liberalism (e.g. liberal democracy is best political system, communitarianism is always already bad, the individual is a primary unit of political analysis) which I think ultimately undermines/contradicts her larger points at times. But beyond that and a few confusing examples, this is an excellent text that was fascinating and insightful to read, and has actually informed my everyday political and ethical thinking.

Tronto is definitely doing something cool. I am really enjoying my care ethics readings because they are challenging almost all my base assumptions on the nature of morality and politics. However, I am still unconvinced that care ethics is going to deliver what I need from an ethical theory - unsurprisingly I find more purchase with Aristotle. Tronto would perhaps just repeat from this book "the kind of metaethical theory that we find convincing reveals a great deal about who we are, what moral problems we think are significant, and how we view the world" (149). And I think she's probably right.
My only real beef with this book is twofold: first, her notion of care seems too small, as she focuses primarily on the role of the care-giver and not the receiver as well as not fleshing out the possibility of a network of care; and second, I think she misread Smith. I've read more on Smith's ethical thought the past six months than I ever thought I would, but in doing so I have found a profoundly interesting and robust ethical view. Tronto's view does not match what I think of Smith. However, I'll probably just write a paper about it and not bore everyone on Goodreads about it.
TLDR: Interesting stuff, but I remain unconvinced. If you are curious about care ethics, this is a good read. ;)