by Alex Nicollet Delon ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 12, 2018
A candid, chatty remembrance about standing on your own two feet.
A woman in her 60s starts over after leaving a 47-year marriage in this debut memoir.
Delon met her future husband, “Brad”—names in this memoir have been changed—when she was only 17; they married shortly after she graduated from high school and had three sons in just a few years. Then, the author says, she endured nearly five decades of emotional abuse and infidelity before finally leaving her spouse. Afterward, she quickly discovered that she had little idea of who she was, outside of her codependent marriage. She didn’t even feel like she knew how to make friends at her age—much less tackle the concept of dating again. But over the next few years, she learned more about herself and relationships with others; she found new pals, such as “Jo Harris,” a widowed spitfire with whom she shared trips to Cabo and boozy girl talk about men, past and present. Delon also struggled with the death of her mother and a son’s addiction. She chronicles a series of sometimes-funny, sometimes-distressing misadventures with potential suitors, whom she met online and off. By sharing her story, she says, she hopes that other women will “benefit from [her] mistakes and be heartened by the brilliance of life beyond a dysfunctional relationship.” Delon’s narrative voice is immediately compelling, and her prose is full of striking images, such as her realization, early on, that she’d been “Holding [herself] together with barbed wire,” or her extended metaphor of her relationship with Brad as a margarita, with the limelike sour of his philandering and the sweet relief of his excuses. She also pulls few punches when recounting her own mistakes, or details of her sex life (“I’ve made my sons swear they’ll never, ever read this book,” she quips). The book has some distracting tense shifts, and she strikes a sour note when she states that a man posting a personal ad looking for a woman with “No inhibitions” who’s “Open to anything” would be better off hiring a sex worker. However, most readers will likely be rooting for her from the first page.
A candid, chatty remembrance about standing on your own two feet.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9995208-0-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Nicollet Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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