A poignant and bittersweet poetry collection about a mother’s devotion.
Krueger offers a memoir about caring for a sick child in poetry form.
Krueger explores connections between flora, motherhood, and illness in this poetry collection. The title refers to the way different types and colors of flowers convey emotion: “Everyone speaks / a little flower,” she writes in “Floriography of a Birth.” She praises “the women before me” who “knew / which flowers were delicious, / which could heal” (“Heritage”). In “Sunflower,” three days after a birth, she takes the new child to the garden and tells her, “I grew this for you.” As wildfires rage, she nurses her ill daughter (later diagnosed with dysautonomia) and longs for her own mother. “Make-Believe” captures a couple’s everyday moments while caring for a sick child: “We are making love and ignoring everything. / We are opening up the medicine cabinet / and staring at it. We are drinking too much. / We are sleeping too much.” As laypeople and medical professionals alike disregard the severity of her daughter’s disease—a teacher reports that the 5-year-old has trouble keeping her head up at school, like a drooping sunflower—Krueger visits a medicine woman and a shaman for answers. Throughout, photographs and mixed media art pieces by the author echo the poems’ themes. Krueger’s knowledge of flowers is impressive, as is her ability to infuse them with meaning. Regarding runner beans, she writes, “Brilliant shack of sun-shock / already in prayer—couldn’t / carry the weight of themselves— / just born, fading” (“Sunflower”). Camellias open “themselves like / unabashed valentines” (Camellia, Bruise”), and Irises are “silken scarves” that “smell / like jelly beans” (“Growing Iris”). Unfortunately, the art doesn’t add much to the book, and many of the reproductions of the images are of poor quality. The words stand on their own and paint a more vivid picture of what it means to love in the face of health challenges.
A poignant and bittersweet poetry collection about a mother’s devotion.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781636281483
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Red Hen Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Spears’ vulnerability shines through as she describes her painful journey from vulnerable girl to empowered woman.
A heartfelt memoir from the pop superstar.
Spears grew up with an alcoholic father, an exacting mother, and a fear of disappointing them both. She also displayed a natural talent for singing and dancing and a strong work ethic. Spears is grateful for the adult professionals who helped her get her start, but the same can’t be said of her peers. When she met Justin Timberlake, also a Mouseketeer on the Disney Channel’s updated Mickey Mouse Club, the two formed an instant bond. Spears describes her teenage feelings for Timberlake as “so in love with him it was pathetic,” and she’s clearly angry about the rumors and breakup that followed. This tumultuous period haunted her for years. Out of many candidates for villains of the book, Timberlake included, perhaps the worst are the careless journalists of the late 1990s and early 2000s, who indulged Timberlake while vilifying Spears. The cycle repeated for years, taking its toll on her mental health. Spears gave birth to sons Sean Preston and Jayden James within two years, and she describes the difficulties they all faced living in the spotlight. The author writes passionately about how custody of her boys and visits with them were held over her head, and she recounts how they were used to coerce her to make decisions that weren’t always in her best interest. As many readers know, conservancy followed, and for 13 years, she toured, held a residency in Las Vegas, and performed—all while supposedly unable to take care of herself, an irony not lost on her. Overall, the book is cathartic, though readers who followed her 2021 trial won’t find many revelations, and many of the other newsworthy items have been widely covered in the run-up to the book’s release.
Spears’ vulnerability shines through as she describes her painful journey from vulnerable girl to empowered woman.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781668009048
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: tomorrow
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
What a talent, what a career, what a life, and what a treat to relive it all with this most down-to-earth of demigods.
A gloriously massive memoir from a sui generis star.
When Keith Richards and Bruce Springsteen published 500-page memoirs, that seemed long—but as we learned, they really did have that much to say. Streisand doubles the ante with 1,000 pages. In addition to chronicling her own life, the author offers fascinating lessons on acting, directing, film editing, sound mixing, lighting, and more, as revealed in detailed accounts of the making of each of her projects. As Stephen Sondheim commented about her, “It’s not just the gift, it’s the willingness to take infinite pains.” The pains really pay off. With every phase of her life, from childhood in Brooklyn to her 27-year-romance with current husband, James Brolin, Streisand throws everything she has—including her mother’s scrapbook and her own considerable talent as a writer—into developing the characters, settings, conversations, meals, clothes, and favorite colors and numbers of a passionately lived existence. In the process, she puts her unique stamp on coffee ice cream, egg rolls, dusty rose, pewter gray, the number 24, Donna Karan, Modigliani, and much more. Among the heroes are her father, who died when she was very young but nevertheless became an ongoing inspiration. The villains include her mother, whose coldness and jealousy were just as consistent. An armada of ex-boyfriends, colleagues, and collaborators come to life in a tone that captures the feel of Streisand’s spoken voice by way of Yiddishisms, parenthetical asides, and snappy second thoughts. The end is a little heavy on tributes, but you wouldn’t want to miss the dog cloning, the generous photo section, or this line, delivered in all seriousness: “Looking back, I feel as if I didn't fulfill my potential.”
What a talent, what a career, what a life, and what a treat to relive it all with this most down-to-earth of demigods.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780525429524
Page Count: 992
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2023 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
