A winningly personal guide to dealing with life’s pitfalls.
A debut book intertwines an inspirational manual with the autobiography of a young wife.
Early in her narrative, Holm recalls the impatience and near desperation she felt about wanting to find a good man, marry, and start a family with him. For far too long, prospects seemed grim, but then she met a man named Anthony, who eventually (although not soon enough to suit the author’s impatience) proposed to her. The two were on their honeymoon when they received news from their doctors about prospective pregnancies: each of them carried a recessive gene for a deadly infant malady, meaning that there was a 1 in 4 chance any baby of theirs would be born with the disorder and die within a year. The news was devastating, and Holm tried to calm herself through a combination of personal balance and lessons gleaned from various self-help authors. She recounts events that happened during this and every other stage of her marriage while at the same time trying to impart lessons to her readers about the things those incidents taught her. Thanks to her considerable narrative gifts, this pairing of story and lesson works unusually well throughout. “When your mind begins to race and your heart starts to feel the weight of fear, you are either gripping onto the embers of your past mistakes, or your thoughts are reeling for a future that cannot be controlled,” she writes about those horrible days spent trying to make herself enjoy her time with Anthony regardless of how her future pregnancies went. “In order to get a hold of your anxiety, you must learn to become present.” Each of the book’s chapters ends with a “Trail Journal” of questions designed to get readers thinking about how Holm’s experiences might raise issues in their own lives. The pedagogical aspect of this is saved from any hint of condescension by the approachable way the author tells her own tale, warts and all, and by the frequent glints of humor. “Germany was surprisingly pleasant,” she writes. “It wasn’t as German as I thought it would be.”
A winningly personal guide to dealing with life’s pitfalls.Pub Date: July 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9983782-0-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Grace Strategies, LLC
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 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.
