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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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