A captivating look at people who made the choice to quit.
A debut collection of true stories focuses on quitting jobs, relationships, and habits.
In this self-help book, Behal gathers tales from nearly two dozen people who discuss the decisions they made to walk away from marriages, careers, hobbies, and other pursuits that no longer served a useful purpose in their lives. Throughout the chapters, the author adds her own commentary and stories about things she has quit in her own life. The tales are grouped by topic, opening with a soda addict’s recollection of giving up carbonated beverages for good and concluding with an account of ending an engagement shortly before the wedding. Behal includes contributions from Younas, who ended his heroin use; Christina, who left a corporate job to train for the circus and then left the show after achieving her goal; Genevieve, who put her health ahead of a powerful consulting career; and Amanda, who is no longer a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The stories reflect a variety of socio-economic experiences, though the author acknowledges that being in a position to quit generally requires some degree of privilege. One of the most compelling tales involves Leah, who was raised in an abusive family of drug dealers and dealt with addiction before choosing to walk away from the destructive environment she grew up in and turning her entrepreneurial skills toward more legal pursuits. Behal does an excellent job of capturing compelling stories in her profiles (“I was reading business textbooks and learning Marxist and feminist philosophy during the day and getting tear gassed and fighting with the police at night,” one man explains). The author’s analysis—the structural and emotional barriers that often delay the decision to quit, the cultural stigma attached to it—is frequently intriguing, particularly as she discovers that the anti-quitting attitude she learned from her South Asian parents has its equivalent in other cultures (although the book’s glib references to the “Puritan work ethic” display a limited understanding of the sociological concept).
A captivating look at people who made the choice to quit.Pub Date: April 28, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63676-948-6
Page Count: 332
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
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