by David Lee Sadai ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2023
A candid, accessible schema for superseding a stagnant mindset.
Awards & Accolades
Our Verdict
GET IT
Sadai’s self-help guide prompts readers to reframe the search for inner peace.
While taking a Canadian Army leadership course, the author realized that he no longer wanted to experience “life in such a torturous, monotonous, and aimless way,” feeling powerless to address his malaise and make changes. While this revelation was painful, Sadai was able to change his job and reorient himself around his true priorities—he asserts that the tools to reset one’s course are as attainable as they are effective. He urges the reader to relearn how one perceives time, desire, and (often self-imposed) limitations: “When our beliefs are disconnected by dissonance and we are in amnesia of our true self, we perceive reality in blindly accepted lies and illusions and consequently, suffer through our experience of life.” As a verb, “unraveling” often comes with a negative connotation—it implies breaking down, destabilizing, requiring repair. But the author insists that sometimes we need to unravel, tear down the foundations, and start again. This process requires creating a new, holistic routine of exercise, expressing gratitude, following a more conscious diet, and practicing yoga and meditation. These tenets are familiar, but Sadai does not present them as if they are revolutionary; his prose conveys simple conviction. The text helps to define spirituality buzzwords and concepts, including each of the body’s chakras and the 12 laws of the universe. Some more nuanced advice addresses the ways our language informs our actions, sexuality’s role in spirituality, and the need for financial literacy. The highlight of the book explores the benefits of psychedelic experiences as a spiritual practice for transcending “the self beyond the mind where you can unravel the false self and false identity.” In fact, the section on psychedelics presents the author at his most vulnerable; his forthright recounting of experiences with substances like psilocybin and LSD feels authentic, and the book benefits from this.
A candid, accessible schema for superseding a stagnant mindset.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2023
ISBN: 9781039169647
Page Count: 234
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
by Anne Heche ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 24, 2023
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
Share your opinion of this book
by Nicole Avant ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 17, 2023
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
Share your opinion of this book
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.