A worthy, step-by-step, Christianity-infused empowerment guide to clearing the dark thoughts out of your mind.
A debut manual offers a program to infuse an individual’s thinking with optimism.
Kirk and Linda Thomas present their work with a playful wink. The husband-and-wife team know what readers will inevitably be thinking when the term “dirty-minded” is used. Their own meaning is subtly but importantly different: They want readers to question how and to what extent they allow negativity to enter their thoughts. These pessimistic thoughts, the authors stress, are both universal and deeply damaging (“No one is immune from the obstacles created with negative self-talk”). They spend the bulk of their book explaining the program they’ve developed for dealing with such dirty thinking. The plan’s acronym, ADAPT2, is derived from a list of components: Attitude, Discipline, Action (“nothing is achieved without meaningful action to create change”), Patience, and Training. These are skills that readers need to develop just like any other. The added T—the “gold nugget” that squares the final letter—is Trust in God, the “real difference maker.” This final element pushes the work firmly into the Christian inspiration category, with the authors frequently reminding readers of the importance of “looking for God’s direction in having a strong, well-defined purpose.” Even so, the volume provides a multitude of rousing stories, many revolving around athletic triumphs and the importance of achieving small victories in order to gain a greater feeling of empowerment. The authors excel in breaking down their message into bullet points and stirring vignettes, always stressing to their readers that negativity “shouldn’t live rent-free” in their minds, whereas positivity should always be welcomed. The manual’s compartmentalized format can make the momentum of the overall narrative difficult to maintain, but the sequential breakdown of each component of ADAPT2 helps the work achieve coherence. Readers may find some of the nostrums championed in these pages a bit on the obvious side (bring a book to the waiting room of an appointment; make a mental note to call an old friend), but the underlying optimism remains infectious.
A worthy, step-by-step, Christianity-infused empowerment guide to clearing the dark thoughts out of your mind.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5320-2853-3
Page Count: 170
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A vibrant, encouraging depiction of a sinister disorder.
A British novelist turns to autobiography to report the manifold symptoms and management of his debilitating disease, depression.
Clever author Haig (The Humans, 2013, etc.) writes brief, episodic vignettes, not of a tranquil life but of an existence of unbearable, unsustainable melancholy. Throughout his story, presented in bits frequently less than a page long (e.g., “Things you think during your 1,000th panic attack”), the author considers phases he describes in turn as Falling, Landing, Rising, Living, and, finally, simply Being with spells of depression. Haig lists markers of his unseen disease, including adolescent angst, pain, continual dread, inability to speak, hypochondria, and insomnia. He describes his frequent panic attacks and near-constant anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure. Haig also assesses the efficacy of neuroscience, yoga, St. John’s wort, exercise, pharmaceuticals, silence, talking, walking, running, staying put, and working up the courage to do even the most seemingly mundane of tasks, like visiting the village store. Best for the author were reading, writing, and the frequent dispensing of kindnesses and love. He acknowledges particularly his debt to his then-girlfriend, now-wife. After nearly 15 years, Haig is doing better. He appreciates being alive and savors the miracle of existence. His writing is infectious though sometimes facile—and grammarians may be upset with the writer’s occasional confusion of the nominative and objective cases of personal pronouns. Less tidy and more eclectic than William Styron’s equally brief, iconic Darkness Visible, Haig’s book provides unobjectionable advice that will offer some help and succor to those who experience depression and other related illnesses. For families and friends of the afflicted, Haig’s book, like Styron’s, will provide understanding and support.
A vibrant, encouraging depiction of a sinister disorder.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-312872-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
SEEN & HEARD
Readers Donate Depression Book After Star Suicide
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