Two authors with disparate life experiences offer similar spiritual guidance and wisdom in this effective book.
Student and teacher join forces to share personal stories with the intention that others may rediscover the spiritual significance of everyday events.
In this debut collection of 28 inspirational short stories, Barker and Potvin reveal mutual insights gleaned from their otherwise dissimilar lives to inspire others and promote the teachings of Christ. Barker is a wife and mother, raising a child with Down syndrome in a close-knit family, while the older Potvin struggled as a father with his rebellious daughter and boasts such life experiences as once having lost a car in a game of pool. Yet despite these differences, the two discovered each other in 2002 when Barker was a graduate student and Potvin her professor, his encouragement strengthening her burgeoning faith. Drawing on funny, informative, and sometimes heart-wrenching experiences, they have compiled hard-learned lessons for better spiritual living, from how to treat others and one’s self, to how to appreciate God’s everyday miracles and cultivate a stronger relationship with Christ. This work is modest in voice and execution, each brief anecdote beginning with a quote from the likes of Mark Twain, William Blake, C.S. Lewis, even Woody Allen (among others), and ending with a cited passage of relevant Scripture. These bookends, along with explicit notation of the author of each passage, help ease the transitions between the writers’ differing styles. Barker’s sections are plainly religious, sharing her day-to-day family trials to illustrate a broader commentary about her personal relationship with God, while indulging in a self-admitted fetish for beautiful, naturalistic imagery, which she vividly re-creates. Potvin’s contributions are more contemplative, ruminating on missed opportunities and what his own stories aim to teach, while still offering strong emotional moments, particularly concerning his daughter. Barker shares some interactions with her co-writer, but these are too few, and it would have been nice to see more of their connections beyond these and the preface. Though the essays show a different approach to faith and highly varied life experiences, their conclusions are the same, preaching the utility of prayer, reflection, and other cathartic outlets, while showcasing the importance of forgiveness and understanding.
Two authors with disparate life experiences offer similar spiritual guidance and wisdom in this effective book.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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