A beautiful, persistently joyous book that sees the best in humanity.
Huang reflects on community, self-discovery, and happiness in this collection of essays.
“You see, the heart, my heart,” writes the author, “often yearns for the intangible, the unseen, the secrets that hide in the shadowed corners of existence.” While stereotypical 17-year-olds are often characterized by their angst and antiestablishment impulses, Huang is relentless in her optimistic assessment of the world, expressing, in the book’s opening essay (“Where to Put My Eyes”) her desire for eyes that “unveil a world where the unspoken becomes a vibrant tapestry, weaving love, desire, and connection into a beautiful, unscripted story.” The author’s idealistic view of the world is similarly reflected in essays that contemplate her upbringing in an urban metropolis (cities, she writes, are home to “ceaseless vitality” where “people surge like a river through the streets”) or the benefits of travel (“a catalyst for empathy”). Other chapters focus on the joys of youth, such as the camaraderie of students in a Spanish class, daydreams induced by Lana Del Rey lyrics, the blissful enjoyment of Japanese anime, and desires for “that fleeting, stolen kiss beneath the stars.” The theme of happiness, “a sentiment that doesn’t ask for explanations, validation, or justifications,” is interwoven throughout the book, which concludes with an essay on the practice of keeping a gratitude journal. At just 24 total pages, the book contains 11 essays, each only a few pages in length. While easy to read cover-to-cover in half an hour, this book is best absorbed slowly. Cynical readers may accurately point out that the book conveniently ignores the harsh realities of modern life, but Huang’s ode to innocent wanderlust is refreshingly alluring. In a world of division, exploitation, greed, and violence, the perspective of a teenage girl who questions why adults hide their “profound wishes in the realm of impossibility” offers a ray of hope for the future. Written in almost poetic prose that is rich with imagery, this book gives voice to the young idealists among us. Readers will no doubt eagerly await Huang’s next volume.
A beautiful, persistently joyous book that sees the best in humanity.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9798864015858
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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