An intriguing but uneven manual that focuses on eradicating negative thoughts and feelings.
A guide offers step-by-step instructions for how readers can cure their harmful emotions through writing.
Ildikó, a researcher from Slovakia, has written a short manual for readers wishing to heal what she calls “information cramps”—“a phenomenon that directly affects the human central nervous system.” She claims that these cramps overload readers’ brains with stimuli, causing “depression, anxiety, and personality disorders.” To cure these cramps, she provides the following remedy: “write as much as possible about things that are bothering you,” crumple, tear, throw the paper away, shower, take a break, and smile. In Slovakia, the author felt judged by society for being a young widow, so she used her knowledge of cognitive processes to develop this guide to eliminating negative emotions. For the first step of this process, she recommends that readers write down everything: “sadness, pain,” and feelings of failure. The author claims her simple manual will heal cramps faster than other guides, which are “incomplete and incorrect.” Ildikó delivers some useful tips in this well-intentioned and thought-provoking book. But her instructions are a bit repetitive, urging her readers to “Write. Write. Write. Write. Write. Write. Draw. Scratch. Write. Write. Write.” There are also a lot of platitudes in these pages. For example, “Smile and laughter are the best medicines. Don’t forget to laugh. Laugh a lot. It’s medicine. Have a wide smile at this guide. Well done. Smile is your medicine.” And: “You are a strong life. Remember it, and believe in yourself. Believe in yourself, and remember all the nice and beautiful things.” The book would benefit from the author’s expanding the instructions with prompts and presenting more information on how writing helps the central nervous system.
An intriguing but uneven manual that focuses on eradicating negative thoughts and feelings.Pub Date: Dec. 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-72834-064-7
Page Count: 62
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A marvelously tender memoir on suicide and loss.
An essayist and novelist turns her attention to the heartache of a friend’s suicide.
Crosley’s memoir is not only a joy to read, but also a respectful and philosophical work about a colleague’s recent suicide. “All burglaries are alike, but every burglary is uninsured in its own way,” she begins, in reference to the thief who stole the jewelry from her New York apartment in 2019. Among the stolen items was her grandmother’s “green dome cocktail ring with tiers of tourmaline (think kryptonite, think dish soap).” She wrote those words two months after the burglary and “one month since the violent death of my dearest friend.” That friend was Russell Perreault, referred to only by his first name, her boss when she was a publicist at Vintage Books. Russell, who loved “cheap trinkets” from flea markets, had “the timeless charm of a movie star, the competitive edge of a Spartan,” and—one of many marvelous details—a “thatch of salt-and-pepper hair, seemingly scalped from the roof of an English country house.” Over the years, the two became more than boss and subordinate, teasing one another at work, sharing dinners, enjoying “idyllic scenes” at his Connecticut country home, “a modest farmhouse with peeling paint and fragile plumbing…the house that Windex forgot.” It was in the barn at that house that Russell took his own life. Despite the obvious difference in the severity of robbery and suicide, Crosley fashions a sharp narrative that finds commonality in the dislocation brought on by these events. The book is no hagiography—she notes harassment complaints against Russell for thoughtlessly tossed-off comments, plus critiques of the “deeply antiquated and often backward” publishing industry—but the result is a warm remembrance sure to resonate with anyone who has experienced loss.
A marvelously tender memoir on suicide and loss.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780374609849
Page Count: 208
Publisher: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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