An empowering and informative read for women of all ages.
Mason describes the “evolutionary lineage” of life as a woman in this nonfiction work.
Aiming to expand on the old chestnut identifying a woman’s developmental stages as “maiden, matron, and crone,” the author conceptualizes the lifespans of women across nine stages: Foundation, Awakening, Sovereignty, Matrescence, Segue, Metamorphosis, The Free Period, The Glide, and The Resolution. For each stage, she describes typical features, outlines some science and research, and discusses how to empathize with someone living through it. Mason also includes excerpts from interviews, some of which were conducted on her podcast, The Rose Woman Podcast. Each chapter concludes with a list of “Key Takeaways” summarizing the main points of the stage in question. While the author presents ample scientific support for these developmental stages, her spiritual and social considerations are equally thorough and convincing. “Sovereignty” and “Matrescence” are the longest chapters, containing extensive discussions of sexuality along with feminist analyses of womanhood in society. Some of the most edifying arguments in the text are found in these chapters—one such concept is journalist Nicolle Hodges’ idea of a “sexual debut,” which typically occurs in Stage 3, Sovereignty. Mason describes the sexual debut as an alternative to the “loss” of virginity, “a celebration of stepping into your sexual self, in whatever way feels right for you. Not something you lose, but something you claim.” While the author expresses her hope that the book can be “for every woman—across age, background, and life experience—who is curious about the diverse stages of female development,” she acknowledges that her lens is that of “a woman in a particular cultural, racial, and socioeconomic context, and the perspectives of those I interviewed.” Throughout the book, Mason includes space for differences, emphasizing that the stages are descriptive, not prescriptive. (Only when discussing breast implants, which she views as “insanity,” does her validation of alternate perspectives wane slightly.) The book provides a powerful new way to look at the lifecycles of women that feels inclusive and affirming.
An empowering and informative read for women of all ages.Pub Date: April 1, 2025
ISBN: 9798218643775
Page Count: 382
Publisher: Moonglow Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.
In which the veteran humorist enters middle age with fine snark but some trepidation as well.
Mortality is weighing on Sedaris (Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, 2017, etc.), much of it his own, professional narcissist that he is. Watching an elderly man have a bowel accident on a plane, he dreaded the day when he would be the target of teenagers’ jokes “as they raise their phones to take my picture from behind.” A skin tumor troubled him, but so did the doctor who told him he couldn’t keep it once it was removed. “But it’s my tumor,” he insisted. “I made it.” (Eventually, he found a semitrained doctor to remove and give him the lipoma, which he proceeded to feed to a turtle.) The deaths of others are much on the author’s mind as well: He contemplates the suicide of his sister Tiffany, his alcoholic mother’s death, and his cantankerous father’s erratic behavior. His contemplation of his mother’s drinking—and his family’s denial of it—makes for some of the most poignant writing in the book: The sound of her putting ice in a rocks glass increasingly sounded “like a trigger being cocked.” Despite the gloom, however, frivolity still abides in the Sedaris clan. His summer home on the Carolina coast, which he dubbed the Sea Section, overspills with irreverent bantering between him and his siblings as his long-suffering partner, Hugh, looks on. Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters. For example, cashiers who say “have a blessed day” make him feel “like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.” But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals.
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
PROFILES
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