A powerful and compassionate Christian self-help text.
A prescription for forgiveness drawn from Scripture.
The Ahithophel referenced in the title of Spencer’s nonfiction debut is an Old Testament figure whose story is intimately connected with that of King David. Ahithophel had been the king’s trusted advisor until David coveted Ahithophel’s granddaughter Bathsheba and orchestrated the death of her husband, Uriah the Hittite. At that point, Ahithophel turned against the king and unsuccessfully sought his military destruction, and he later hanged himself. This story presents Spencer, a lecturer at Caribbean Maritime University, with the crux of her analysis, which deals with the concept of forgiveness. Ahithophel “could either devise strategies to hurt David,” she writes, “or allow God to work on his heart and help him to forgive David.” In her view, Ahithophel drifted further and further from “his identity in God” as he focused on revenge; she identifies this as the “Ahithophel Syndrome” and lays out a faith-based program for dealing with vengeful thoughts and rediscovering “the unsurpassed pleasure that comes from showing compassion.” She uses the acronym “F.O.R.G.I.V.E.” to describe this program, which stands for “Father’s Ointment Richly Given to Invalidate Vicious Emotions.” Throughout the book, Spencer stresses that forgiveness is a key aspect of the Christian faith, and it’s one that many adherents fail to achieve: “We find that many Christians are hateful,” she writes, “lacking purity of heart and are not mindful of others’ feelings.” She clearly makes her key point that forgiveness is not just a duty to God, but also a duty to the people whom one forgives. Insights such as these are common, as are the author’s autobiographical asides; she also repeatedly demonstrates her firm command of Scripture. Each chapter reinforces the author’s disarmingly simple message: “When we put our faith in God, we have peace in God.” Christian readers who may have lost sight of the central tenet of forgiveness will find reinvigorating reminders in these pages.
A powerful and compassionate Christian self-help text.Pub Date: May 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-949343-86-1
Page Count: 108
Publisher: DayeLight Publishers
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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