Heartfelt advice for cancer patients, though the embrace of out-of-the-box healing methods may have a limited appeal.
A cancer survivor offers an alternative approach to overcoming disease.
When Meer (The Story of the Strange Sandwich, 2012, etc.) was diagnosed with cancer (what type is never specified), she was already struggling with personal and professional problems. A serious illness was the last thing she needed, but after the initial shock, she decided that healing would begin in her mind. “I am going to believe I am well. And if I believe I am well, I will be well,” she recalls telling her doctor. This unconventional outlook informs her approach to treatment and the advice she offers to readers on their own journeys to wellness. Meer begins by advocating that people slow down and consider their options, suggesting meditation and diet changes as first steps before more invasive treatments. “Give up sugar. It is EVIL” is typical of her emphatic recommendations, which are largely based on her personal experience. Some of the advice seems fairly sound, like bouncing on a trampoline to promote lymphatic drainage. Other tips may raise eyebrows, at least for those who usually put their faith in allopathic medicine. Cleanses, a strict plant-focused diet, and a cocktail of supplements (which she confesses to spending $1,500 per month on during her illness) all have the potential to help “cure” cancer, according to the author. Though Meer did receive chemotherapy, she stopped before completing treatment and is frank about her negative experiences with Western medicine. There’s also practical information on coping with finances while sick, the best beauty products for cancer patients, and thoughts on dating after a diagnosis. The guide’s tone is friendly and often funny, and fellow cancer patients should appreciate Meer’s tell-it-like-it-is attitude and her counsel to advocate for themselves and choose treatments that work for them. But more information on how to integrate alternative and traditional medicine would have been helpful for those who wish to combine both approaches. And some readers will likely disagree with Meer’s “look on the bright side” attitude. Though she admits some may find the idea “disgustingly Pollyanna,” her belief is that “major illnesses…show up to heal your life.”
Heartfelt advice for cancer patients, though the embrace of out-of-the-box healing methods may have a limited appeal.Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9985821-9-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
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