This diverse and articulate book can help countless women move from heartbreak to healing, shedding their shame and soothing...
A writer weaves together stories of lost motherhood in this combination of memoir, Bible study, and self-help manual.
Abortions, miscarriages, stillbirths, premature labor, tragic accidents—all devastating events of child loss that leave women full of grief, shame, and bitterness. Debut author Upshaw herself has lost children, Sunshine and Daniel, one by abortion and one by premature labor. Therefore, she is no stranger to the overwhelming spectrum of emotions that accompany child loss, allowing her to write deeply poignant passages like this one: “Bitterness is not a momentary reaction to a singular event. It is a brewing stew of hurt, sadness, confusion, and despair that culminates into a lingering, subtle anger so gnawing that you don’t care who sees or hears it.” But through the years, her sorrow has been mended by the grace of God, especially as she has found similar stories from women in the Bible, her sacred partners “in genuine female hurt.” Each chapter begins with a modern tale connected to child loss, most of them the author’s. After that, Upshaw turns back to Old and New Testament times, describing characters and events in lucid detail and extracting profound meaning from often just a few verses. For example, she compares her desire for her son’s proper burial with the story of Rizpah, who protectively watched over her sons’ bodies until they could be buried, a selfless act that inspired even King David. Other notable characters include Elimelech’s wife, Naomi, whose children died; Hannah, who suffered infertility; and Tamar, a victim of rape. The modern accounts are just as varied—abortion for a variety of reasons, adoption, the deaths of children at birth or in their early years, sexual assault, and the role of caretakers—making the stories relevant to a wide range of female readers. Upshaw writes eloquently and openly, with compassion and without condemnation, leaving readers with the unequivocal message that they are not alone and that there is always hope for recovery.
This diverse and articulate book can help countless women move from heartbreak to healing, shedding their shame and soothing their souls one page at a time.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9992683-0-8
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Spirit and Grace Publishing Ltd
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 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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