An earnest but ultimately superficial manual for the job-search process.
A life coach offers a Christian-centered guide to landing a dream job.
Yang, a self-described “finance guru for Millennials,” has created a guidebook for modern jobseekers. She begins by cataloging her own professional experiences, recalling multiple instances in which she applied for 50 jobs in a single day and received job offers in five days. She shares her unusual professional trajectory, which included working at Domino’s Pizza, doing foot-fetish modeling, bookkeeping, and starting her own financial services business. These experiences all inform her job-seeking philosophy, and she offers many tips here. For example, Yang states that, “Personal branding makes up 50% of your success in landing a job quickly,” and recommends using one’s full name professionally to improve Google search results and “control the narrative” of one’s story. She urges jobseekers to get professional headshots for social media; to employ a graphic designer to create a color palette and typeface for business cards, letterhead, and more; and to choose a “stylish” Zoom background for maximum impact. In addition, the book encourages readers to claim a domain name, create a website, and establish an email address with a custom signature. Blogging, vlogging, and writing books are highlighted as other ways to further elevate one’s brand. In addition, Yang provides a step-by-step overview of how to achieve “All-Star” status on LinkedIn and recommends a company for public-speaking instruction. Other tips for career advancement include developing new skills, embracing feedback, and always going the extra mile at work. Throughout, Yang infuses her advice with Christian theology: “It is in serving others that God provides us unbelievable opportunities.”
Yang’s title doesn’t allude to the book’s heavy religious influences, which may surprise secular jobseekers. Some of the author’s advice is useful, as when she insightfully notes that “Courage feels terrible” and goes on to explain that “Courage is the act of committing yourself to doing it anyway, despite the fear.” However, the book is hampered by several flaws. Some lines, for example, feel clichéd, such as “We can learn and do anything we set our minds to,” and a few chapter titles, such as “Better Managing Your Time for Increased Productivity” and “Doubling Your Productivity by Increasing Typing Speed” feel unnecessarily wordy. The utility of some tips, such as “Whatever you do, be fabulous doing it,” is questionable, and others seem counterproductive, as when she advises readers to submit job applications en masse, but “Don’t bother researching any of the companies. Just apply.” The book also shames sex workers, declaring at one point that “It’s disgusting for a woman” to make a living on OnlyFans. Other lines are puzzling, as when she discounts why a famous person might find it easier to get a job than someone unknown: “Think of all the people who are incredibly famous and well respected in their industry….Every company wants to snatch this person up before someone else. If it’s possible for famous people, why isn’t it possible for you?”
An earnest but ultimately superficial manual for the job-search process.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2023
ISBN: 978-1961039018
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Annie Yang Financial Corporation
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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