A unique and engaging approach to self-improvement that includes some unnecessary fluff.
Abueva, a marketing professional, offers an alternative framework to New Year’s resolutions in this practical guide for a better life.
The author introduces the six-step Janus Plan as “a loom for weaving meaning, intention, and action into the fabric of your year”; it’s named after Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, endings, and transitions. “Step One: Ponder the Past” requires reviewing the previous year and collecting “artifacts” from personal sources, such as journals, planners, and social media posts. This step also includes identifying highs and lows, as well as insights and implications. “Step Two: Frame the Future” instructs readers to create a “Life Pie” to assess their satisfaction across various areas of their lives. Abueva offers tips for effective goal-setting, like mapping out “bite-sized” steps, tracking progress, and celebrating small wins. “Step Three: Nudge the Now” tackles procrastination, pinpointing why it happens and providing strategies to counteract it. “Step Four: Clean and Clear” involves decluttering living spaces and detoxing—physically, financially, and digitally. “Step Five: Revel in Ritual” encourages celebration inspired by international New Year’s traditions. “Step Six: Revisit and Reignite” discusses the importance of reviewing goals and adjusting as needed. The book concludes with a reminder to “Stay steady at the loom, prepared to create yet another stitch that joins with others to become a fulfilled life.” Abueva invites readers to aspire higher than traditional New Year’s resolutions in this motivational guide. The book’s primary strength is its actionable advice: A “Big Task Template” addresses procrastination by breaking down an onerous task into small steps, each followed by a reward; for example, after decluttering the kitchen, order one new upgrade. The book also incorporates playful exercises, including “Procrastination Bingo” and the “Pomodoro Bambini Challenge,” to facilitate momentum. Visual elements, like fillable charts, and “Thought Threads” (prompts) break up the text and encourage engagement throughout. However, the intermittent “Stitch Notes” sections—filled with factoids loosely related to the Janus Plan, such as mentions of celebrities who use vision boards—feel like filler.
A unique and engaging approach to self-improvement that includes some unnecessary fluff.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.
In which the veteran humorist enters middle age with fine snark but some trepidation as well.
Mortality is weighing on Sedaris (Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, 2017, etc.), much of it his own, professional narcissist that he is. Watching an elderly man have a bowel accident on a plane, he dreaded the day when he would be the target of teenagers’ jokes “as they raise their phones to take my picture from behind.” A skin tumor troubled him, but so did the doctor who told him he couldn’t keep it once it was removed. “But it’s my tumor,” he insisted. “I made it.” (Eventually, he found a semitrained doctor to remove and give him the lipoma, which he proceeded to feed to a turtle.) The deaths of others are much on the author’s mind as well: He contemplates the suicide of his sister Tiffany, his alcoholic mother’s death, and his cantankerous father’s erratic behavior. His contemplation of his mother’s drinking—and his family’s denial of it—makes for some of the most poignant writing in the book: The sound of her putting ice in a rocks glass increasingly sounded “like a trigger being cocked.” Despite the gloom, however, frivolity still abides in the Sedaris clan. His summer home on the Carolina coast, which he dubbed the Sea Section, overspills with irreverent bantering between him and his siblings as his long-suffering partner, Hugh, looks on. Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters. For example, cashiers who say “have a blessed day” make him feel “like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.” But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals.
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
PROFILES
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