by John Trautwein ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 11, 2014
Written with passion and honesty, this book shares each step of the author’s journey, making an unbearable tale of suicide...
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In this debut memoir, a businessman details how he used the most excruciating experience of his life to help save others.
In the early hours of Oct. 15, 2010, Trautwein’s oldest son, Will, a handsome, popular, beloved 15-year-old, wrapped his belt around his neck and hung himself from his bedroom closet door. He left behind his anguished parents, three younger siblings, and an enormous circle of grief-stricken extended family and friends. There were no obvious warning signs and no suicide note, only a penciled picture found in a folder on top of Will’s backpack—a drawing of a boy holding a gun to his head, and then, lower on the page, “a smaller drawing of a man hanging himself.” How could this happen? Why? There are no answers. But readers do learn that Will—so outgoing, so normal—is the very face of teenage suicide. Trautwein, a former professional baseball player and a businessman, knew he must find a way to carve a path for the living to bring himself and his family through the tragedy. His answer was to form The Will to Live Foundation, dedicated to teaching teenagers how to turn to one another for help when they are despondent. In part inspired by the angel Clarence in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, the foundation’s mission is to encourage teenagers to find their own Clarence, that one friend they can turn to when they need a guide back from the precipice. In this stirring account, the author brings readers into the horror of the moment of that terrible October morning: “My boy was hanging from the closet door. He was ghost white....Those beautiful blue eyes…were open, but lifeless... staring straight out at me, right through me.” Tears continually spill from the pages. But then they are dried by Trautwein’s infectious optimism. He has found a way to honor his son and his own survival (“The day The Will to Live Foundation was formed, something extremely special, something truly good began! I felt alive again, really for the first time since Will died”). This skillful memoir is both devastatingly painful and surprisingly filled with hope.
Written with passion and honesty, this book shares each step of the author’s journey, making an unbearable tale of suicide readable and inspirational.Pub Date: Dec. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4908-5973-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Oprah Winfrey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 2, 2014
Honest messages from one of America's best known women.
A compilation of advice from the Queen of All Media.
After writing a column for 14 years titled “What I Know For Sure” for O, The Oprah Winfrey Magazine, Winfrey brings together the highlights into one gift-ready collection. Grouped into themes like Joy, Resilience, Connection, Gratitude, Possibility, Awe, Clarity and Power, each short essay is the distilled thought of a woman who has taken the time to contemplate her life’s journey thus far. Whether she is discussing traveling across the country with her good friend, Gayle, the life she shares with her dogs or building a fire in the fireplace, Winfrey takes each moment and finds the good in it, takes pride in having lived it and embraces the message she’s received from that particular time. Through her actions and her words, she shows readers how she's turned potentially negative moments into life-enhancing experiences, how she's found bliss in simple pleasures like a perfectly ripe peach, and how she's overcome social anxiety to become part of a bigger community. She discusses the yo-yo dieting, exercise and calorie counting she endured for almost two decades as she tried to modify her physical body into something it was not meant to be, and how one day she decided she needed to be grateful for each and every body part: "This is the body you've been given—love what you've got." Since all of the sections are brief and many of the essays are only a couple paragraphs long—and many members of the target audience will have already read them in the magazine—they are best digested in short segments in order to absorb Winfrey's positive and joyful but repetitive message. The book also features a new introduction by the author.
Honest messages from one of America's best known women.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-1250054050
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Flatiron View Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
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by Jessica Simpson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 4, 2020
An eye-opening glimpse into the attempted self-unmaking of one of Hollywood’s most recognizable talents.
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New York Times Bestseller
IndieBound Bestseller
Rolling Stone & Kirkus' Best Music Books of 2020
The debut memoir from the pop and fashion star.
Early on, Simpson describes the book she didn’t write: “a motivational manual telling you how to live your best life.” Though having committed to the lucrative deal years before, she “walked away,” fearing any sort of self-help advice she might give would be hypocritical. Outwardly, Simpson was at the peak of her success, with her fashion line generating “one billion dollars in annual sales.” However, anxiety was getting the better of her, and she admits she’d become a “feelings addict,” just needing “enough noise to distract me from the pain I’d been avoiding since childhood. The demons of traumatic abuse that refused to let me sleep at night—Tylenol PM at age twelve, red wine and Ambien as a grown, scared woman. Those same demons who perched on my shoulder, and when they saw a man as dark as them, leaned in to my ear to whisper, ‘Just give him your light. See if it saves him…’ ” On Halloween 2017, Simpson hit rock bottom, and, with the intervention of her devoted friends and husband, began to address her addictions and underlying fears. In this readable but overlong narrative, the author traces her childhood as a Baptist preacher’s daughter moving 18 times before she “hit fifth grade,” and follows her remarkable rise to fame as a singer. She reveals the psychological trauma resulting from years of sexual abuse by a family friend, experiences that drew her repeatedly into bad relationships with men, most publicly with ex-husband Nick Lachey. Admitting that she was attracted to the validating power of an audience, Simpson analyzes how her failings and triumphs have enabled her to take control of her life, even as she was hounded by the press and various music and movie executives about her weight. Simpson’s memoir contains plenty of personal and professional moments for fans to savor. One of Kirkus and Rolling Stone’s Best Music Books of 2020.
An eye-opening glimpse into the attempted self-unmaking of one of Hollywood’s most recognizable talents.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-289996-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2020
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