Moms searching for mind and body improvement will enjoy the colorful inspiration.
A disheveled Canadian mom befriends a sexy Colombian, and the end result is a lively account of self-discovery and life balance in Waring and Cano’s memoir.
Though Waring’s lighthearted voice makes for a fun read, her life wasn’t always so breezy. As an expatriate living in Buenos Aires, she loved the culture and her family. But her husband’s job forced him to travel nearly 150 days a year, and the daily responsibility of caring for two young children rested heavily on her shoulders. As a result, she suffered from migraines, a back injury and exhaustion. Enter Cano, a former swimsuit model and Colombian expatriate mother who “laugh[ed] heartily, dance[ed] with the enthusiasm of a teenager and savour[ed] good food like there [was] no tomorrow.” Waring was dazzled by Cano’s flair and the way she balanced motherhood and her own needs. Per Waring, Colombian women embrace their femininity at all ages, but their beauty goes much deeper than the skin. Cano reveled in the moment and appreciated the small things in life. Even hangovers were wonderful events to Cano because she could lounge in bed with her husband. Eventually, the two women embarked on a project to turn Waring into a lovely “Yummy Mummy” like Cano, complete with confidence, playfulness and professionally blow-dried hair. Waring’s personal improvement journey bubbles with humor (often self-deprecating, as she describes her frizzy hair and very pale “blue white” legs) and tongue-in-cheek banter. While marveling at the fact that Cano is a Colombian who doesn’t drink coffee, Waring exclaims, “Oh, my beloved coffee! However as the Canadian who doesn’t drink beer, I can’t throw stones. Somehow, we have both failed in our patriotic duties.” Along with a peek into the ethnically diverse Latin American culture, Waring discusses what she learned from Cano, including a potpourri of life philosophy and health and beauty topics that range from “To Wax Or Not To Wax” to “Power Plate” exercising. A glossary of food and cultural terms, as well as websites and articles for further reading, are included. Waring’s transformation and most of the beauty ideas—like moisturizing skin and drinking lots of water—are familiar. However, rollicking anecdotes, such as the time Waring danced onstage with George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, are memorable reminders for readers to carpe diem.
Moms searching for mind and body improvement will enjoy the colorful inspiration.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 260
Publisher: FastPencil
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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