A raw and deeply engrossing salvation story.
An actor’s noteworthy journey from convict to Hollywood celebrity.
As one of the most easily recognizable cinematic bad guys, Trejo (b. 1944) has made a career of being mauled and maimed across dozens of films, from Desperado to Con Air to Grindhouse to Machete. As the author shows, his real life has been as tumultuous and eventful as any action story. Raised in a large Mexican American family oozing with “macho Chicanismo,” Trejo fell under the influence of Uncle Gilbert, who mentored him in life on the streets. Gilbert taught him how to rob, box, take drugs, and pass a prison sentence. Trejo was 12 when he first tried heroin, and his battle with addiction would land him in one correctional facility after another until he eventually found himself in some of California’s most infamous prisons. From the darkest depths of incarceration, Trejo made a commitment to sobriety and began living by a mantra of service, which showed him that “everything good that’s ever happened in my life has come as the direct result of helping someone else and not expecting anything in return.” Unwavering in his pledge to remain clean and help others do the same, Trejo continues to battle with lingering challenges involving his roles as a devoted husband and loving father. The author chronicles his battles with personal demons alongside his spectacular rise to stardom and impressive success in the entertainment industry and with a Trejo’s Tacos and Trejo’s Coffee & Donuts in LA. Throughout, the author expresses himself in an informal yet consistently thoughtful manner. In the collaborator’s note, co-author and fellow actor Logue writes, “Nearly everything he said was gold: wise, funny, pithy, at times, clairvoyant. I gained more insight on life in those first few days…with Danny than I had in my previous thirty-two years.”
A raw and deeply engrossing salvation story.Pub Date: July 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-982150-82-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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