Helpful techniques for achieving life goals, but often sidetracked by the minutiae of an allegorical world.
Rigolosi identifies commitment, awareness, goals and exercise (CAGE) as the key ingredients to transformation in her blueprint for changing one’s life.
The author’s guide to self-improvement is told as a fable. Gretchen, Hans and their children, Little Gretel and Little Chaunce, live on The Lake and believe their Lily Pad is mysteriously shrinking, perhaps as a result of their creation of The Well of Many Spirits, a method of food storage. Eager to find out why the Lily Pad is shrinking (or perhaps how to make it bigger—the goal is not quite clear), Gretchen and Hans seek the advice of The Great Wizard of the Lakes, who promises to teach them the secret to “unlocking your CAGE” in four discrete lessons. Returning to The Great Wizard’s Lily Pad each time, Gretchen and Hans learn that by aligning their thoughts, feelings and actions, they can take control of their lives. Each of the four chapters is followed by a distilled lesson for the reader, offering visualization exercises as well as directions for how to enact the four lessons. Many of The Great Wizard’s directives seem wise and true— “Your CAGE exists only if you give it life by feeling CAGED—by being unaware and uncommitted and by feeling unable to control yourself. You direct what you believe to exist.” The world of The Lakes, while charming, often distracts from the larger lessons of the book. The presence of so many capitalized alternate names— “The Warmth in the Sky” for sun, “Water Petal” for cup and “The Well of Many Spirits” for an ice box—bogs down the story. While the lesson recaps appear to be applicable to various life challenges, the fable seems peculiarly focused on weight (much is made of Gretchen and Hans eating more as a result of their new food storage capability) and their preoccupation with their small home. A shrinking lily pad seems like an odd stand-in for what should be read as a universal obstacle to living one’s best life.
Helpful techniques for achieving life goals, but often sidetracked by the minutiae of an allegorical world.Pub Date: April 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-1463772758
Page Count: 120
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2012
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
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
© 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.
