Merlinda Weinberg’s Paradoxes in Social Work: Mitigating Ethical Trespass narrates a compelling study of the experiences of five front line social workers, who through their work, found themselves entangled in a complex web of injustice that pre-structured, and sometimes predetermined, the life courses of young mothers and fathers in Ontario, Canada. The book enriches the existing literature on social work ethics and is thus a worthwhile read. The monograph is based upon Weinberg’s analysis of 28 qualitative interviews she held with these practitioners over a period of two years. Her analysis begins from the assumption that there are six fundamental paradoxes –including among others, the well-debated paradox of care versus discipline. These set social work practice up in such a way that ethical trespassbecomes unavoidable. Citing Hannah Arendt (1958) and Melissa Orlie(1997), Weinberg defines ethical trespass as “the harmful effects ... that inevitably follow not from our intentions and malevolence but from our participation in social processes and identities” (Weinberg, 2016, p. 17). To explore her participants’ experiences and handling of these paradoxes and the trespasses that followed, Weinberg (2016, p. 7) adopts “a critical approach that employs both structural and post-structural theorising”. Thisapproachenables her, firstly,to illuminate the discursive traditions and interpretive leanings adopted by her research participants in the narration of their practice experiences, challenges and dilemmas. Secondly, it facilitates an in-depth discussion of the way these discourses interacted, sometimes complementing and at others contradicting one another in her participants’ interpretation of their work. In her final analytic step, Weinberg demonstratesthe ways in which these interpretations led to particular practice choices.Weinberg (2016, p. 1) wants to better understand “how, if at all, it is possible to practice in an ethical fashion, given the contradictions in the ... profession of social work”. The outcome of her explorations is “a tale”of Weinberg’s “own anguish about the current state of social services”, her “anxiety about the possibilities of anti-oppressive applications in the field”, and her “passionate hope in the potential to edge towards more ethical practice” (Weinberg, 2016, p. 26).