Inspiring as the affirmations can be, the book is ultimately less than the sum of its parts.
A collection of affirmations selected from the author’s daily tweets.
Twitter discourse is not distinguished by its positivity. But amid the rants, complaints, and depressing news, Miranda, the creator of the megahit musical Hamilton, offers daily inspirational greetings to start and end the day. These tidbits offer occasions for reflection and gratitude, and at their best, they spur confidence, resilience, and even happiness. Unfortunately, the magic doesn’t carry over from social to printed media. Even when the advice is good—e.g., “Gnight! / Your mind is yours alone. / Do what it takes to make yourself comfy. / Draw the blinds, kick out unwelcome guests. / Make it your home” or “Do NOT get stuck in the comments section of life / today. / Make, do, create the things. / Let others tussle it out”—reading more than a couple at a time is like going to the store and reading all the birthday cards. Eventually, they begin to sound sentimental or pat. Miranda describes his method for composing these tweets in his introduction: “I’m writing what I wish somebody would say, / Then switching the pronoun to you.” Readers will do well to invert this formula and switch the pronouns back to I as they read. This strategy allows an escape from awkward questions about why the author is saying these things to you. Although even reading “[I] did good today” forces the question, did I? Better is the playful specificity of something like “get some food in you, maybe a banana.” This brief collection is best when the author deviates from straight inspiration and surprises readers. Sun’s (everyone’s an aliebn when ur a aliebn too, 2017) line drawings, which enhance the book’s lighthearted side, are a notable addition to the print version of Miranda’s affirmations; they are a fun and refreshing presence throughout.
Inspiring as the affirmations can be, the book is ultimately less than the sum of its parts.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-984854-27-8
Page Count: 204
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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