Bettencourt takes a broad view of opportunities small and large for forgiveness, and in doing so, she provides hope for a...
One writer’s journey through learning about the many forms forgiveness can take.
We’re living in a time of rage, anger, censure, and punishment online, where any misstep is treated grievously with heaping helpings of shaming. The Internet often serves as an outlet for anger, a way to redress perceived wrongdoings, but it also, over time, leaves more anger than it vents. Forgiveness, on the other hand, is less likely to be found trending on Twitter; it takes work, or at least that’s what journalist Bettencourt thought. An especially humiliating and public dissolution of a relationship left her feeling justified in embracing nonforgiveness wholeheartedly, but she began to wonder whether maybe there might be something to a different approach. She became aware of the story of Azim Khamisa, whose 20-year-old son was shot and killed. Somehow, almost immediately, Khamisa began moving toward forgiveness: “There were victims at both ends of that gun,” he told a friend. Of course, the intention toward forgiveness was started as just that, and it did little to salve the pain, anger, and grief that plagued him initially. But the process led to salvation of his mind and soul. Bettencourt was naturally interested in finding her own peace of mind, so she began to explore other stories of forgiveness against all odds. She sees the intersection of forgiveness and redemption in the process of asking for forgiveness for herself, and she has learned that forgiveness requires restoring trust not just in others, but also in ourselves. Forgiving one’s parents, not only for things they have done, but also for the things they should have done, presents the difficult challenge of accepting shortcomings we often see in ourselves.
Bettencourt takes a broad view of opportunities small and large for forgiveness, and in doing so, she provides hope for a way forward that focuses more on acceptance than retribution.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-59463-263-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Hudson Street/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
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