An affecting and skillfully written chronicle of trauma, survival, and generational healing.
A woman confronting her mother’s death revisits a lifetime of family dysfunction.
Burmesch frames her memoir around the aftermath of her mother’s 2019 death, beginning with the author and her sister sorting through their parents’ overstuffed home, searching for a ring their controlling father once claimed to have hidden away. From there, the narrative moves through the author’s childhood in Wisconsin, where her alcoholic father, Eddie, oscillated unpredictably between charm and cruelty, per the author. Small humiliations and moments of terror accumulate rapidly: Burmesch recounts abandonment in bars as a child, untreated medical emergencies, physical abuse, constant screaming fights, emotional neglect, and the shame of growing up in filth (“I was the dirty kid, that character Pigpen in the Peanuts comic strip”). She describes her mother as chronically ill and emotionally depleted; in the narrative, she emerges as both victim and enabler, someone unable to protect her children yet still capable of tenderness and rare moments of attention. Later chapters follow the author into adulthood as she marries, raises children, battles anxiety and claustrophobia, survives breast cancer and a nearly fatal infection, and gradually begins to identify the long-term effects of childhood trauma. The memoir’s greatest strength lies in its emotional transparency and in Burmesch’s perceptive depiction of how abuse reverberates across generations. Particularly affecting are her reflections on parenting and her eventual effort to forgive her mother without minimizing the damage done. The prose is sharply observed and emotionally articulate, particularly in its vivid rendering of childhood confusion and the lingering psychological effects of abuse. The author’s emotional candidness gives the narrative considerable weight; at times, however, the exhaustive recitation of traumatic incidents becomes repetitive and emotionally flattening—the sheer volume of suffering the author describes can dilute the force of individual moments. Even so, Burmesch’s reflections on parenting, resilience, and forgiveness lend the work an appealing genuineness.
An affecting and skillfully written chronicle of trauma, survival, and generational healing.Pub Date: June 23, 2026
ISBN: 9781953865960
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Books Fluent
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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