Imparts basic, well-targeted knowledge while not burdening readers with an overwhelming amount of detail.
A financial adviser offers practical advice to baby boomers about leaving a legacy and protecting assets in old age.
Many baby boomers facing the inevitability of aging and death seem to be largely unprepared financially and emotionally. Hazewski, a financial adviser who’s also a boomer, wrote this brief yet authoritative guide “to help you understand the fundamental factors that determine whether you will grow old with dignity or difficulty.” This isn’t a guide to investments or accumulating wealth, though; rather, the author addresses the vexing financial and legal issues that individuals often overlook until it’s too late. On the financial and legal side, Hazewski turns his attention specifically to living wills, advanced directives, last wills and trusts. On the practical side, he also talks about the need for long-term care and the importance of making one’s final wishes known to family. “We should never be afraid to share thoughts about our final arrangements with family,” he says. “As awkward as it may seem, it can be done if addressed openly and without emotion.” The writing is clear and concise, and the book’s structure makes it engaging and easy to read. Each chapter begins with a vignette dramatizing a particular scenario related to certain financial or health issues one faces in old age. Hazewski then offers his personal commentary on every scenario, provides a discussion of the broader topic and closes the chapter with a number of “lessons.” The author assembled the scenarios from his experiences with a number of clients, so the realism of the stories helps make Hazewski’s counsel all the more relevant. At times, it seems the author focuses a bit too much on the requirements for Medicaid, giving the impression that many seniors may eventually run out of the money needed to pay for health expenses. Still, Hazewski covers enough other bases that boomers and their families should benefit from the information he shares.
Imparts basic, well-targeted knowledge while not burdening readers with an overwhelming amount of detail.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4839-7836-9
Page Count: 132
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A far-reaching, mostly persuasive guide that seeks to change how people approach inner challenges.
Ion and Irimia’s self-help book presents seven principles that can alter readers’ lives.
Many people face internal roadblocks that keep them from succeeding. While therapy remains a common treatment option, it can take years to make progress. Fast Transformation Protocols, the method advocated in Ion and Irimia’s guide, is the opposite, only requiring a minor time commitment. The seed for FTP was Ion’s first company, a recruitment agency for corporations in Transylvania, Romania. On a trip with a colleague named Sara, Ion freed the woman from the perception of abandonment, making Sara understand that benefits exist in even the most negative situations. FTP primarily operates by asking many “weird questions” and utilizing seven universal laws: those of duality, reflection, transformation, synchronicity, eristic (i.e., argumentative) escalation, order, and fractals. The laws mingle concepts from science, philosophy, and psychology. Just a few of the numerous examples the authors discuss regarding the law of duality alone include the Babylonians’ concept of celestial cycles; the Chinese version, yin and yang; and, in biology, the balance of cell birth with cell death. Another inspiration is Carl Jung’s exploration of coincidences (the law of synchronicity) and archetypes (the law of fractals). Added to the mix is a helping of spirituality. The authors ask readers, when they’re contemplating life challenges, to consider sacred contracts, an idea that “before birth, your soul carefully chooses the exact context and circumstances it will incarnate into.” The ambitious guide is written in Ion’s voice; she’s a sensitive presence who seems to genuinely aspire to help others. She recalls that as a child, “I pulled my emotions inward and packed them tightly inside me, like delicate things wrapped in newspaper.” Yet this delicacy is balanced by a love of organization and rationality, reflected in this well-structured and mostly convincing book. Intriguing case studies demonstrate how the laws the authors discuss apply to real situations. But some readers will question the success rate. Using one of the seven universal laws is always shown as succeeding, although perhaps not immediately.
A far-reaching, mostly persuasive guide that seeks to change how people approach inner challenges.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2025
ISBN: 9798993098203
Page Count: 313
Publisher: Inspired Life Circle LLC
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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