A solid review of addiction theories and treatments and a significant call for biology-based treatment; too bad it’s buried...
An experienced addiction counselor examines the leading causes of drug and alcohol dependencies and suggests a new perspective for treatment and recovery.
In this debut clinical guide, McArnold shares wisdom gained from two decades of treating individuals addicted to drugs and alcohol. Relying on his experiences and several recent studies, including those performed by Nora Volkow of the National Institute of Drug Abuse, the author concludes that biological predisposition is the leading cause of chemical dependency, with psychological and social factors playing secondary roles. Indeed, McArnold makes the point that not all who drink or take drugs develop an addiction––“only those who are biologically vulnerable in the first place develop an addiction.” In Part 1, “A Call for Change,” McArnold provides an overview of addiction and discusses various theories about the causes of chemical dependency. According to the author, after a drug is taken, the biological response is constant (the body becomes dependent); however, the actual “addiction, the desire to use, can be completely eradicated.” McArnold sounds a call for change, making the case that biology and genetics play central roles in addiction and should be emphasized in developing recovery plans. The idea is to allow addicts to understand that their addiction is not a moral failure or a bad choice but a predilection. In Part II, “Moving Forward,” the author covers genetics, spiral progression and treatment approaches, as well as material referenced in earlier chapters. In all, McArnold’s book shows a noteworthy command of the subject, and his central thesis about the importance of focusing on biological predisposition is worthy of his peers’ review. However, with a great deal of addiction-counseling jargon—“the brain’s re-uptake and receptor sites appear to increase (or in some cases decrease) when neuro-transmitter levels are consistently too high”—the book likely will be too clinical for many readers. Similarly, the writing wanders at times, themes are repeated, and chapter organization isn’t always logical; the epilogue isn’t at the end, for instance. Readability would be greatly enhanced by reducing the book into smaller chapters divided into sections with titles, chapter summaries, and more charts and diagrams.
A solid review of addiction theories and treatments and a significant call for biology-based treatment; too bad it’s buried under clinical text in need of an editor.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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