An intriguing tale of one woman’s search for identity and community.
A memoir about an unusual spiritual journey.
In her first book, freelance writer Himsel chronicles her slow transition from the cultlike religion of her youth to her conversion to Judaism. Raised in rural Indiana, the author followed her parents into the Worldwide Church of God, a quasi-Christian religion founded by radio evangelist Herbert Armstrong. The religion, steeped in end-times teachings, required members to adhere to Old Testament laws and holy days while eschewing many of the traditions of mainstream Christianity. Himsel was raised to assume the imminent end of the world and to see her salvation as based on how thoroughly she followed church teachings. Nevertheless, she managed to move onward, entering Indiana University. In 1981, while in college, she left to study in Israel to pursue her intense interest in the area’s biblical history. At the time, she knew almost nothing about modern-day Israel or modern Judaism. Over time, however, her connection to Judaism grew—through Israel and through American Jewish friends—while her faith in her parents’ church waned. Eventually, while living in New York, a Jewish boyfriend and a pregnancy forced the issue of conversion, leading to yet another journey. Himsel admirably narrates her life story in page-turning prose that is both entertaining and moving. Her tale of conversion is unique given that she started in what can only be seen tangentially as a Christian denomination. The since-discredited Worldwide Church of God both stunted the author’s spiritual growth and led her to the foundations of Judaism. To many readers, it will seem that Judaism was a natural next step for Himsel. One unresolved issue is the author’s oft-expressed yearning for “the Spirit,” for a moment of certainty and full belonging. Unfortunately, she never seems to find this moment, nor even a full feeling of belonging, whether as a Christian or a Jew.
An intriguing tale of one woman’s search for identity and community.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-941493-24-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Fig Tree Books
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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
IN THE NEWS
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
