A multifaceted, thought-provoking, and learned exploration of a painful subject.
A nurse specializing in cancer treatment shares her experiences after her son was diagnosed with leukemia in this debut memoir.
Post-White’s son, Brennan, was 4 years old when he became ill. The author began to worry after he started to experience leg and abdominal pains. After they visited a pediatrician, blood tests showed concerning abnormalities. As an oncology nurse, Post-White was aware of the grave significance of her son’s low hemoglobin count and braced herself for bad news. “I was a cancer nurse, researcher, and educator…but I had no training as a cancer mom,” remarks the author in her preface. Her memoir charts each step on Brennan’s road to recovery after his leukemia diagnosis, offering the dual perspectives of a highly trained nurse and a loving mother. Post-White’s writing poses probing questions asked by many whose lives have been touched by cancer, such as “Why Cancer? Why Now? Why Us?” She also explores her young son’s coping process by sharing pictures Brennan drew to express his feelings throughout his treatment. As a medical professional, the author takes a philosophical approach to surviving and facing fears, asking: “Can we ever be prepared for death? Or cancer?” Post-White’s writing is sharply analytical and grounded in actuality: “The reality is that one in ten childhood cancer survivors will have heart disease by the time they are forty.” But the delivery of stark facts is delicately counterbalanced with a profound excavation of personal emotions: “Darkness is a part of life, as it is a part of every rotation of the earth. But some nights felt blacker than others.” The result is a skillfully well-rounded memoir in which the author draws on her own experiences, charts Brennan’s medical and emotional progress, and alludes to the struggles of patients she has treated. While some readers may recognize that several cancer treatments have changed since the late 1990s, when Brennan was first diagnosed, Post-White’s account remains relevant, as contemporary protocols “include many of the same medications, schedules and ‘road maps.’ ” In a marketplace crowded with similar titles, the author’s informative work shares rich layers of a valuable perspective—delivering concise medical explanations, a nurse’s experience and compassion, and tender maternal understanding—making this book stand out from the rest.
A multifaceted, thought-provoking, and learned exploration of a painful subject.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4766-8710-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Toplight Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© 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.
