Journallike entries that sometimes deliver poignant moments.
In this collection of Facebook posts, a writer shares her daily moments of joy.
A couple of days after the 2016 election, Giorgio (In Grace’s Time, 2017, etc.) was walking her dogs when a man in a “Make America Great Again” hat tried to kick her pets. The author intervened, and he kicked her instead—then shoved her off the sidewalk. When she discussed the assault on Facebook, many people were supportive, but others accused her of lying. Giorgio writes that she even received death threats. Overwhelmed by the political climate, the author began searching for positivity by posting “Today’s Moment of Happiness Despite the News” on Facebook. After her initial entry, she vowed to post a moment of joy every day for a year. The result is this compilation of her Facebook posts, beginning on Jan. 30, 2017. Sometimes the posts are tender, as when she describes her autistic daughter’s talent with the violin. Other times, she has to struggle to find cheer because the year proved to be extremely difficult: Giorgio was diagnosed with breast cancer; her husband lost two jobs; and her daughter was severely bullied at school. Nevertheless, the author did have some good days; for example, her novel was published, and she beat breast cancer due to early detection. Though her breezy, conversational prose is easy to read, Giorgio includes several eye-glazing rants, like the day she forgot her purse and had difficulty installing a printer cartridge. But other posts are thoughtful—when she conducts a book club for female prisoners, her compassion is memorable. While not a lot of political talk is included here, the tone becomes vitriolic when it is—the author calls President Donald Trump “the Orange Asshat” and maintains that “our ‘leader’ is intent on destroying anything his little orange hands can touch.”
Journallike entries that sometimes deliver poignant moments.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68433-129-1
Page Count: 458
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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