An affectionate final word on an inspiring man comes from his devoted wife.
This earnest memoir recalls a SWAT officer who lived and died for the greater good of his community.
Simmons’ book centers on her late husband, Randy Simmons, the first SWAT officer in Los Angeles Police Department history to be killed in the line of duty. The biography tenderly chronicles Randy’s devoutly Christian childhood in Brooklyn and LA, his years in college trying and failing to make the NFL draft, and finally his callings to become a police officer and marry Lisa, his “soul mate.” Together, they build a family and a rich life of community service, from Glory Kids, the church organization Randy launches (and Lisa assists with whether she wants to or not!) to help inner-city kids and families, to the volunteer SWAT efforts he dutifully signs on for. The hostage situation that kills him, which involves a mentally unstable man with a gun, is one such mission. The last quarter of the book describes the aftermath of his death, beginning with the planning of an internationally televised 10,000-person funeral. As Lisa explains to her heartbroken children: “People love your father because he was an ordinary man who did extraordinary things.” This moving, well-written biography is as much a love story as it is an homage to Randy’s remarkable goodwill. Simmons describes their relationship with a lot of lightness and humor, adeptly developing the marriage itself as a character that we grow to love and that we miss when Randy’s gone. (Says Randy: “When was the last time y’all been to church?” Lisa replies: “Okay, Moses, you gonna lead the way?”) Understandably, Simmons does not criticize Randy or show him as anything but heroic. It’s only when Lisa is excluded from the police investigation surrounding the unsavory circumstances of Randy’s death that we see another, more nuanced dimension to the story; even then, a potentially gripping plotline seems stifled by Lisa’s loyalty to Randy, who would not have wanted the name of the LAPD tarnished. Nonetheless, it’s that same loyalty that lends real charm and depth to this intimate portrait of Randy Simmons, as well as of the LAPD as a whole, here given a warm, nuanced complexity and a representation rarely seen in the news.
An affectionate final word on an inspiring man comes from his devoted wife.Pub Date: July 25, 2012
ISBN: 978-1475937060
Page Count: 342
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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