An often engaging book that uses wit and wisdom to connect women to a sense of divinity.
A reverend offers a how-to guide for unleashing one’s inner goddess.
Brockway opens her discussion by analyzing the Garden of Eden from alternative perspectives, reframing the biblical Eve as a liberator. She then presents her views on 36 female spiritual figures, each of whom, she says, offer women pathways to fulfilling their potential, divided into five categories: “Self-Empowerment and Strength,” “Love and Romance,” “Family Life and Friendship,” “Work and Finances,” and “Play and Lightheartedness.” These heroes include famous goddesses, such as Venus, representing self-appreciation, and Isis, channeling the healing of relationships, as well as lesser-known figures, such as White Buffalo Calf Woman, symbolizing sacred female leadership, and Brigid, embodying creativity and inspiration. Brockway also includes Christian religious figures, such as the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Saint Térèse, uniting them through themes of female encouragement and strength. Brockway ultimately offers a book about self-love, encouraging women to connect with a more genuine sense of beauty and power than mainstream media offers. Brockway offers a diverse pantheon, including divine women from Asia, Africa, and northern Europe, and she adds a practical element to an otherwise esoteric work, proposing self-care activities to help one “connect” with these divines, including affirmations, mantras, healing baths, runes, and meditations. Furthermore, Brockway’s work uses accessible language that adds color and humor to the narrative, bringing the goddesses to life. That said, this is not a history text, and much of the content is focused on simply portraying the goddesses as symbols of feminine inspiration. Some readers may also find the largely heteronormative tone lacking in inclusivity. For the most part, however, readers are likely to enjoy Brockway’s affirmative text.
An often engaging book that uses wit and wisdom to connect women to a sense of divinity.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-941630-20-4
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Goddess Communications
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Top Chef fans might savor this detailed account, but others will find it bland.
The Top Chef host describes her journey to new heights.
For those who don’t know, Kish is a “gay Korean adopted woman, born in Seoul, raised in Michigan” and “a chef, a character, a host, and a cultural communicator—as well as a human being with a beating heart.” Though this book covers every step of her journey, every restaurant job and television role, and also discusses her experience as an adoptee (very positive) and a queer woman (late bloomer), the storytelling is so straightforward, lacking in suspense, character development, or dialogue, that it is basically a long version of its (longish) “About the Author.” Seemingly dramatic situations are not dramatized—when she was eliminated on her first Top Chef run, she assures us that she did the best she could, and drops it. “I can spare you the gory details (bouillabaisse and big personalities were involved).” Later, she cites a belief in protecting the privacy of others to omit the story of her first relationship with a woman. With no character development, neither does the reader get to know those who fall outside the privacy zone, like her best friend, Steph, and her wife, Bianca. When she gets mad, she says things like, “It’s a gross understatement to say I was crushed, beyond frustrated, and furious with the situation.” The fact that “I’ve never been a big reader” does not come as a surprise. It is more surprising when she confesses that “I believe the universe is selective about the moments in which it introduces life-changing prospects.”
Top Chef fans might savor this detailed account, but others will find it bland.Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9780316580915
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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