by Janice Anne Wheeler ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 8, 2019
A poignant and engaging account that features some pithy advice delivered with strength and panache.
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In her second memoir, a writer shares her commitment to appreciating each moment, a philosophy strengthened when she returns to New York state to be near her dying father.
Independent, passionate about all things outdoorsy, and devoted to family and friends, Wheeler embraced life’s opportunities and setbacks, determined to have no regrets. Her “Friend Basket” was filled with a diverse assortment of people from around the country with whom she was close. And she was always open to adding someone new. After living out west for about 25 years, Wheeler decided she was ready to shake things up. She sold her catering business in Colorado and headed east: “After a couple of successful careers and not-as-successful relationships that ended, my curvy path led back to the state I grew up in.” That is not where she had intended to land. First, she went to the Florida Keys. New friends and intriguing possibilities kept her on the move. But when her father’s progressive supranuclear palsy, a degenerative disease with neither a cure nor a meaningful treatment, seriously compromised his physical condition, she knew she had to be with him for however much time he had left. She moved into her brother’s house in upstate New York, one mile from where her father and stepmother lived. Wheeler’s time frame vacillates, which sometimes makes it difficult for readers to follow the linear trajectory of her life. But this is a minor complaint. Each vignette or chapter, some as short as a few paragraphs, immerses readers in the emotions of the experience, whether it’s riding the rapids or sitting with her father in a nursing home. Her prose is at once eloquent and conversational; both sharp and gently humorous. There is a fierceness in her important rule—don’t leave until tomorrow what can be said today. The chance may not come again. Despite her obvious grief and anger over watching her father waste away, she was demonstrably grateful to have been there when he needed her. As she shows in these pages, she certainly needed to be at his side.
A poignant and engaging account that features some pithy advice delivered with strength and panache.Pub Date: May 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-09-674453-5
Page Count: 177
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Jennette McCurdy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 9, 2022
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
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The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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