A generous guide through the bumpy terrain of parenting.
An exhausted, stressed, loving mother shares her experiences.
Making her book debut, vlogger Kuzmić, known by her viewers as “the mom who finds humor in every nook and cranny of motherhood while shoving brownies in her mouth and drinking coffee straight out of a coffeepot,” offers hope and support to parents like herself: “wounded by our failures, hobbled by our insecurities.” A decade ago, divorced with two young children, the author was struggling financially, working weekends as a waitress, when she decided to launch a cooking blog, Sticky Cook. Nine days after launch, she was invited to submit a video pitching her own TV show as part of a competition run by the Oprah Winfrey Network. To her amazement, she won, and although her show, The Ambush Cook, ran only one season, Oprah embraced her. “Once you’ve eaten hot dogs with Oprah,” writes the author, “you expect your life to be different.” Remarrying and having another child did make her life different: better in many ways and more complicated. But her TV experience inspired a new project: a parenting video that quickly went viral. Within days, it had over 1 million views. Besides writing about meeting her second husband, dealing respectfully with her ex, and raising children, Kuzmić recalls growing up in Croatia during the nation’s War of Independence in 1991, learning to cook beside her beloved grandmother, immigrating to the United States, and suffering sexual assaults as a 5-year-old and as an adult. Mostly, she writes about motherhood, which she describes as “the most heart-filling part of my life, and it is also at times the most heartbreaking.” A worrier who has struggled with depression and low self-esteem, Kuzmić tries to foster gratitude, self-confidence, and empathy in her children. With her self-absorbed teenage son, she embarked on a game: In two hours, they would complete three random acts of kindness. “The game,” she writes, “is now on regular rotation in our family’s activities” to remind them that each can make other people’s lives better.
A generous guide through the bumpy terrain of parenting.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-56184-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Viking Life
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A highly readable account of how solid research and personal testing of self-help techniques saved a couple's marriage after...
Self-help advice and personal reflections on avoiding spousal fights while raising children.
Before her daughter was born, bestselling author Dunn (Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo?: And Other Questions I Wish I Never Had to Ask, 2009, etc.) enjoyed steady work and a happy marriage. However, once she became a mother, there never seemed to be enough time, sleep, and especially help from her husband. Little irritations became monumental obstacles between them, which led to major battles. Consequently, they turned to expensive couples' therapy to help them regain some peace in life. In a combination of memoir and advice that can be found in most couples' therapy self-help books, Dunn provides an inside look at her own vexing issues and the solutions she and her husband used to prevent them from appearing in divorce court. They struggled with age-old battles fought between men and women—e.g., frequency of sex, who does more housework, who should get up with the child in the middle of the night, why women need to have a clean house, why men need more alone time, and many more. What Dunn learned via therapy, talks with other parents, and research was that there is no perfect solution to the many dynamics that surface once couples become parents. But by using time-tested techniques, she and her husband learned to listen, show empathy, and adjust so that their former status as a happy couple could safely and peacefully morph into a happy family. Readers familiar with Dunn's honest and humorous writing will appreciate the behind-the-scenes look at her own semi-messy family life, and those who need guidance through the rough spots can glean advice while being entertained—all without spending lots of money on couples’ therapy.
A highly readable account of how solid research and personal testing of self-help techniques saved a couple's marriage after the birth of their child.Pub Date: March 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-26710-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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