by Fabiola Manyi-Orellana ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2018
A heartfelt but sparse portrait of a difficult life.
A debut Romanian author presents a memoir of trauma, immigration, and spiritual awakening.
Manyi-Orellana writes that she was 4 years old when an unnamed neighbor in Romania first sexually assaulted her. She tells of more instances of abuse over the next several years; once, she says, she was forced to go on a ski trip with her family to her abuser’s family home in the country. In 1988, when the author was 10, she and her immediate family left Romania for the United States. Her adjustment to life in New York City wasn’t always easy, but when she returned to her home country to visit a sick grandmother, things were far worse, as she was trapped and raped by an older man. After returning to America, the author says, she experienced other difficulties, including an abortion at 18 after an accidental pregnancy and strained communications with her parents. As an adult, she started a family with a man who later intentionally set their house on fire. She writes that although she had always doubted the presence of God, she eventually turned to religion for comfort. After some false starts, she grew to find peace through religious belief and specifically found strength in Scripture; she figured out that “hell is real and so is God.” Although Manyi-Orellana’s memoir is light on specific details, the account of her journey is truly a jarring one. In particular, readers will get a vivid sense of what it’s like to live with long-term abuse. The book makes for a quick read, as it’s fewer than 70 pages long. However, some portions move so quickly that they can become confusing; for example, her account of her spouse’s arson and ensuing arrest creates more questions than it answers. How did he go about the task, for instance, and what were the court proceedings like? Overall, the author’s story is certainly striking, but readers may wish for more detailed information.
A heartfelt but sparse portrait of a difficult life.Pub Date: July 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5255-2787-6
Page Count: 84
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Sept. 10, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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by William Strunk & E.B. White ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1972
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
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