A brave narrative of radical empathy both for oneself and for others confronting the darkest darkness.
A multi-angled examination of suicide.
In 2017, several years after her first suicide attempt, Rebolini became so tormented by a desire to die that she checked herself into a psychiatric ward. In the years since that stay, she has performed sweeping literary, sociological, historical, and psychological research on the topic of suicidality, in an “effort to stake a claim in a conversation dominated by fear and disgust.” Rebolini has been depressed or suicidal most of her life and comes from a “family replete with mental illness”; her own extreme lows mix with those of her brother, Jordan, and other close friends to grant personal shape to a broader inquiry into not only what prompts individuals to engage the extremity of suicide, but also what constitutes recovery from a suicide attempt. Even as the author advances professionally, and achieves other lifelong dreams like marriage and motherhood, the possibility of suicide never disappears, and even the highs of career and family successes necessitate a certain contemplative navigation. She extrapolates from her own financial stress and career ambitions to critique modern stressors like expectations of productivity and barriers to mental health care, and literary figures like Sylvia Plath and David Foster Wallace offer both general lessons and notches against which to measure the severity of her own experience. Rebolini admits that suicide is “tough to talk about because so much of it doesn’t make sense” and that normalizing suicidal thoughts and acts carries a risk. She insists, however, on trying to walk this careful line, and her effort counters the shame of those trying to dodge a persistent desire to not exist, while extending compassionate understanding of and gentle guidance to all those who care for and worry about loved ones struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts.
A brave narrative of radical empathy both for oneself and for others confronting the darkest darkness.Pub Date: April 29, 2025
ISBN: 9780063295322
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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