An economically written testimony that will appeal to Christians seeking to reconcile their faith with loss.
A Christian testimony about a family that faced years of medical challenges.
Born in the late 1960s in rural Kentucky, debut author Lawson grew up watching her parents’ strong work ethic as they operated a local funeral home and ambulance service. She was raised a Christian, but she writes that she was often “not too far from God, but not especially close either….my walk was more in line with other things, like food and books.” After overcoming a lifelong struggle with her weight and self-esteem issues, and surviving a short-lived marriage, Lawson believed that she was finally on track in her life—and then her mother was diagnosed with renal failure. She returned home to help her mom, whom she describes as “ever the ‘steel magnolia.’ ” But after years of daily dialysis, the doctors insisted that a kidney transplant was the only way forward. Lawson was discovered to be a match, and she gave everything she could to try and save the life of the woman who’d done so much for her, but it turned out to be only the beginning of numerous complications. Other family tragedies followed, and Lawson underwent her own struggle with infertility. The crux of her story is her second marriage to a supportive, loving man and her eventual acceptance and understanding of why God would allow such difficulties to befall her family. With her husband’s encouragement, she decided to share her testimony and the story of her resilient faith. Lawson’s concise prose condenses years of her life into a neat, compact narrative that still has room for big, emotional moments. Although she summarizes most events in a few sentences, she also takes care to elaborate painful ones, including her many prayers and her mother’s heartbreaking final gestures, which makes each complication feel more urgent and powerful. Overall, the book follows a familiar narrative for religious memoirs and testimonials, and there are no groundbreaking insights into pain, loss, or the reluctant acceptance of God’s plan. However, Christian readers will appreciate her brevity in sharing her spiritual struggle and eventual revelations.
An economically written testimony that will appeal to Christians seeking to reconcile their faith with loss.Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5127-0244-6
Page Count: 76
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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