A heartfelt and wide-ranging series of encouragements for dealing with grief.
An empathetic exploration of the tragedy of losing an infant.
When a person experiences a miscarriage, a stillbirth, or the death of a baby, writes clinical psychologist Rothert in her nonfiction debut, it leaves him or her emotionally shattered, and wondering whether they’ll ever be whole again. The author has gone through this experience twice herself, and she writes that “my experience has carved out spaces within me that resonate when I hear the stories of those who have lost someone so small—and yet something so big—that it brought them to their knees.” The book examines various aspects of this journey, from the long expectation of a happy birth to the physical experience of loss and the documentation of that loss in journal entries or letters. Rothert shores up these discussions with digressions into her own story, which enhances the warm, personal tone of the book as a whole. As unimaginable as the tragedies are, however, the author stresses that people are able to get through them: “Your life after loss is still your life,” she writes, “a life that bears scars, precious memories, and the seeds of further growth.” Rothert effectively urges her readers to look for even the simplest strategies for getting through the darkest periods: “Living after baby loss, like living the rest of life, is about reaching for the next thing in front of us, no matter how small.” This repeated emphasis on dogged optimism, even in the face of unthinkable suffering, is the book’s greatest strength. The author’s reminder that all of life is uncertain feels far from glib, as it’s clearly intended to encourage readers to concentrate on each day, each moment, to find a way to endure.
A heartfelt and wide-ranging series of encouragements for dealing with grief.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73343-860-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Open Air Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
