A fun-loving, witty book of life lessons.
A zany collection of linked short stories that offers advice, humor, and a contagious zest for the good life.
Carroll, a life coach, created the emblematic character Bertha—an in-charge, colorfully attired, redheaded woman whose mission is to live to the fullest—after becoming an empty nester and reaching a crossroads in her own life. These stories’ unnamed narrator lives in the same neighborhood as Bertha, and one day, after a chance encounter, she impulsively invites her new friend to move into her home as her roommate. Thus begins a series of wild adventures that involve a nagging acquaintance called Rita, an adversarial cat, a discouraging, sluggish relative named Bruce, and others. Over the course of the book, the narrator learns that Bertha’s motto is “I choose”—how to react, how to love, how to view herself, and how to move on. The narrator absorbs Bertha’s quips and learns how to apply them to her own life, and so, too, will readers. Amusing and delightful stories such as “Monkey Grass,” “Mouse Ears,” and “Pink Flamingos” keep readers on their toes as Bertha shares everyday affirmations while tackling new activities; at one point, she sings a song to her begonia whose only lyric is “I’ll begonia before you get home.” The book is apparently a self-help guide disguised as a work of fiction, and although it’s aimed at adults, it’s written in the appealing style of such childhood favorites as the Junie B. Jones or Judy Moody series. It may not be the ideal choice for readers searching for professional guidance, but it works well for those wanting lighthearted, comical reminders not to take life too seriously. Bertha is a magnetic character who inspires joy, laughs, and confidence. Some stories feel repetitive and overlong, but readers will move through them quickly and find themselves asking at the end, “What do I choose to create?” Collins’ occasional full-color ink-and-watercolor illustrations of Bertha reflect the story’s events.
A fun-loving, witty book of life lessons.Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9905878-9-7
Page Count: 122
Publisher: Master Koda Select Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It's being called a novel, but it is more a hybrid: short-stories/essays/confessions about the Vietnam War—the subject that O'Brien reasonably comes back to with every book. Some of these stories/memoirs are very good in their starkness and factualness: the title piece, about what a foot soldier actually has on him (weights included) at any given time, lends a palpability that makes the emotional freight (fear, horror, guilt) correspond superbly. Maybe the most moving piece here is "On The Rainy River," about a draftee's ambivalence about going, and how he decided to go: "I would go to war—I would kill and maybe die—because I was embarrassed not to." But so much else is so structurally coy that real effects are muted and disadvantaged: O'Brien is writing a book more about earnestness than about war, and the peekaboos of this isn't really me but of course it truly is serve no true purpose. They make this an annoyingly arty book, hiding more than not behind Hemingwayesque time-signatures and puerile repetitions about war (and memory and everything else, for that matter) being hell and heaven both. A disappointment.
Pub Date: March 28, 1990
ISBN: 0618706410
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1990
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SEEN & HEARD
The range and virtuosity of these stories make this Mosley’s most adventurous and, maybe, best book.
A grandmaster of the hard-boiled crime genre shifts gears to spin bittersweet and, at times, bizarre tales about bruised, sensitive souls in love and trouble.
In one of the 17 stories that make up this collection, a supporting character says: “People are so afraid of dying that they don’t even live the little bit of life they have.” She casually drops this gnomic observation as a way of breaking down a lead character’s resistance to smoking a cigarette. But her aphorism could apply to almost all the eponymous awkward Black men examined with dry wit and deep empathy by the versatile and prolific Mosley, who takes one of his occasional departures from detective fiction to illuminate the many ways Black men confound society’s expectations and even perplex themselves. There is, for instance, Rufus Coombs, the mailroom messenger in “Pet Fly,” who connects more easily with household pests than he does with the women who work in his building. Or Albert Roundhouse, of “Almost Alyce,” who loses the love of his life and falls into a welter of alcohol, vagrancy, and, ultimately, enlightenment. Perhaps most alienated of all is Michael Trey in “Between Storms,” who locks himself in his New York City apartment after being traumatized by a major storm and finds himself taken by the outside world as a prophet—not of doom, but, maybe, peace? Not all these awkward types are hapless or benign: The short, shy surgeon in “Cut, Cut, Cut” turns out to be something like a mad scientist out of H.G. Wells while “Showdown on the Hudson” is a saga about an authentic Black cowboy from Texas who’s not exactly a perfect fit for New York City but is soon compelled to do the right thing, Western-style. The tough-minded and tenderly observant Mosley style remains constant throughout these stories even as they display varied approaches from the gothic to the surreal.
The range and virtuosity of these stories make this Mosley’s most adventurous and, maybe, best book.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8021-4956-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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