A guide for aspiring senior athletes and an inspirational shoutout to victims of abuse.
A runner, denied her chance to compete as a teenager, returns to the challenge almost 50 years later—and finds her path to self-understanding in the process.
In 1959, Kern (100 Whispered Words, 2015, etc.), an Austrian teenager, was offered the chance to compete as a sprinter for a place on the Olympic team. She was ecstatic. Then her father said “no!” and slapped her to the floor. It was a major disappointment but didn’t really come as a surprise. He had been beating and verbally abusing her for years. After his death two years later, the author went on to snag some acting and modeling jobs in Europe. Fast-forward to 2004. Kern was living in Los Angeles and from a casual acquaintance she learned about the “Senior Olympics.” A new spark had been lit. In 2007, almost five decades after having been denied her chance to compete, the author acquired a coach and returned to training. This entailed an extraordinarily demanding schedule, especially for a woman working as a real estate agent, the manager of her apartment building, and a part-time interior design consultant while writing several books. It also involved a substantial level of pain, as one body part or another rebelled against the intense exercises. In April 2008, at the coach’s suggestion, Kern began a journal to keep track of her workouts, diet, and thoughts. This memoir, covering her experiences from 2008 to 2013, is culled from that journal. As she deftly reveals details of her past, readers gradually learn that the physical pain mirrored the psychological trauma she had kept tucked away for decades, what she calls “the Monster within”—the fear that she was not good enough, not worthy: “Whatever goes through my head is only intensified because I am still wrestling with my father.” So much of the very ably written text is devoted to the minuscule details of her training program that readers not involved in athletics will likely become restless. But her story of overcoming layers of damage caused by her father’s violent attacks is compelling.
A guide for aspiring senior athletes and an inspirational shoutout to victims of abuse.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4575-5298-4
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2018
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
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© 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.
