An often engaging memoir that offers tangible evidence that gestures of empathy and support can make a difference.
A debut memoir explores how 17 special people helped a woman overcome the effects of child abuse and mental illness.
Papierniak’s book begins with her early childhood as the eldest child of a military family, victimized by her controlling, sharp-tongued and sometimes violent mother. The author’s descriptions make clear that her troubled mother passed on a legacy of depression and rage. However, the author sometimes fails to differentiate between her mother’s horrifying acts of violence—including chasing her with a butcher knife—and more typical mother-daughter issues. For example, Papierniak describes in damning tones her mother’s insistence that Monopoly money be organized by denomination, which may make readers who do the same wonder about their own mental health. The book’s structure is largely chronological, moving from the author’s school days, through college and two years in the Navy, and into marriage, parenthood, and professional life as a scientist and musician. For each phase of her life, she identifies a “guardian angel” that gives each chapter its name—someone who provided her with support, counseling, or simply a sense of belonging or self-worth. Some are friends or teachers, but several are therapists and doctors, allowing Papierniak to paint an evocative, if not comprehensive, picture of the mental health system in the 1970s. Her memoir is most self-aware when analyzing her own journey to wellness, and consequently, those therapeutic relationships seem the most fully realized. But scenes involving the author’s mother never seem to achieve the distance necessary for such emotional acuity. By contrast, the author writes too distantly about several “guardian angels,” which may give the impression that their chapters are merely devices for advancing the author’s own story. There’s no reason to doubt the author’s sincerity and appreciation, but readers may long for fuller portraits of these special people.
An often engaging memoir that offers tangible evidence that gestures of empathy and support can make a difference.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2013
ISBN: 978-1482338140
Page Count: 154
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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