A gritty and relentlessly grim survivor’s tale, certainly not for tender sensibilities.
An earnest memoir of life on the mean streets by the founder of a survivors group.
As the book opens, Myers-Powell, a former prostitute and drug addict, has just moved to Gary, Indiana, to live with her brother, who had moved from their native Chicago after he was robbed, and to try to pull her life back together. “I left my family twelve years before as a drop-dead beauty,” she writes, “and came back a messed-up crackhead.” Her world was one of shattered families and low expectations. Raised by a mean-spirited grandmother and pregnant early in her teenage years, Myers-Powell became a prostitute simply to survive. She was frequently raped and robbed by “gorilla pimps,” who “are brutal [and] can get creative with their violence.” Throughout the author’s early life, violence surrounded her (“Nobody was left in the house alive except a three-year-old baby. Some cold-blooded shit—they killed everybody. Shot them all in the head”). One by one, her friends on the streets fell victim to a Hobbesian world, and it was the same wherever she went: New Orleans, Los Angeles, rural truck stops in Indiana, back to Chicago, back and forth. Myers-Powell sometimes expresses defiant pride (“I was the baddest ho out there”) that she managed to free herself of her pimps and run her own show: “Being a prostitute and making money meant I was in control. I bought my own shit and smoked where I wanted to.” Still, after having spent time in California prisons, “stabbed thirteen times and shot five times” over the years, and finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she turned her life around and helped others like her, co-founding the Dreamcatcher Foundation, which fights trafficking and sexual exploitation. The author’s story, co-written by Reynolds, is consistently frank and often shocking, which may deter some readers.
A gritty and relentlessly grim survivor’s tale, certainly not for tender sensibilities.Pub Date: June 29, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-374-15169-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
Everything about Sabathia is larger than life, yet he tells his story with honesty and humility.
One of the best pitchers of his generation—and often the only Black man on his team—shares an extraordinary life in baseball.
A high school star in several sports, Sabathia was being furiously recruited by both colleges and professional teams when the death of his grandmother, whose Social Security checks supported the family, meant that he couldn't go to college even with a full scholarship. He recounts how he learned he had been drafted by the Cleveland Indians in the first round over the PA system at his high school. In 2001, after three seasons in the minor leagues, Sabathia became the youngest player in MLB (age 20). His career took off from there, and in 2008, he signed with the New York Yankees for seven years and $161 million, at the time the largest contract ever for a pitcher. With the help of Vanity Fair contributor Smith, Sabathia tells the entertaining story of his 19 seasons on and off the field. The first 14 ran in tandem with a poorly hidden alcohol problem and a propensity for destructive bar brawls. His high school sweetheart, Amber, who became his wife and the mother of his children, did her best to help him manage his repressed fury and grief about the deaths of two beloved cousins and his father, but Sabathia pursued drinking with the same "till the end" mentality as everything else. Finally, a series of disasters led to a month of rehab in 2015. Leading a sober life was necessary, but it did not tame Sabathia's trademark feistiness. He continued to fiercely rile his opponents and foment the fighting spirit in his teammates until debilitating injuries to his knees and pitching arm led to his retirement in 2019. This book represents an excellent launching point for Jay-Z’s new imprint, Roc Lit 101.
Everything about Sabathia is larger than life, yet he tells his story with honesty and humility.Pub Date: July 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-13375-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Roc Lit 101
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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