An earnest remembrance that will particularly resonate with parents and deeply religious readers.
A debut memoir that chronicles Texeira’s experiences of motherhood, faith, and raising a child with an illness.
Over the course of this book, the author and interior designer confronts significant challenges, buoyed by her strong belief in God, and she recounts them skillfully and with great vulnerability. The author writes about the early days of her pregnancy in 2005: the excitement of telling her husband the news, the fun of brainstorming baby names, and having a proper baby shower. Not long after the family welcomed baby Hailey into the world, the infant’s wheezing led the new parents to make a 911 call, and they were told her oxygen levels were low; they were soon informed that Hailey had a respiratory virus. She received breathing treatments and recovered, but the cycle repeated, causing fearful and stressful moments; it was just the start of a long and difficult health journey. As years passed, Hailey had other physical issues, including chronic bloody noses, low iron levels, bruising, and ongoing fatigue; she was diagnosed with an immune disorder that eventually led to a bone marrow biopsy. Along the way, the Texeiras had another baby, Emily, and moved into a new house. Although the strong elements of faith in this book may not appeal to all readers, those who devoutly practice a faith tradition are likely to connect deeply with Texeira’s story, which often references God’s will and the need for eternal faith in confronting challenges (“The belief that God is my belayer makes everything less scary,” she writes at one point, comparing life’s difficulties to rock climbing). Many of those readers will see themselves in the author’s deep devotion to her beliefs and feel inspired by them. The later sections of the book, in particular, offer an inspiring, sometimes-heartbreaking, always honest tale of forging ahead with grace.
An earnest remembrance that will particularly resonate with parents and deeply religious readers.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-7363458-0-1
Page Count: 305
Publisher: Snapdragon Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2021
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 blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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