An earnest but overly dense collection of thoughts, meditations, and journal exercises.
Alternative health care practitioner Torok offers a robust and spiritual approach to letting go of resentments.
The author writes that she had a tough early life, as she was adopted into a family “where anger led the way.” However, she says that she was comforted by an inner voice reminding her she “was not a bad person.” As an adult, she received guidance from spirits whom she calls “Angels.” Eventually, she says, the messages she received from “the other side of the veil” became too intense, and she asked the Angels to stop contacting her; she writes that they did. She had a varied career, including time as a University of Alabama professor and as a dancer on tour with the famed Rockettes in New York City. In time, Torok says, she summoned the angels back into her life, and she began to receive guidance on forgiving all those who harmed her in her life. She calls these messengers the “Angels of Forgiveness,” and their missives became what she calls “The 4GiveNess Project,” the topic that makes up the core of this book. Torok approaches the hard task of forgiveness from several angles, and the four parts of the book focus on what she calls the “lower bodies”: the mental body, the etheric (or memory) body, the physical body, and the emotional body. Each part is rich with meditations and journal exercises, with QR codes that lead readers to audio meditations. She appealingly gives readers permission to go at their own pace or to skip around in the book, and her gentle compassion shines through. However, if this book is aimed at a general audience, Torok may have overestimated readers’ familiarity with metaphysical beliefs; she begins the book by talking about a 20-sided quartz crystal in the shape of an icosahedron. Such esoterica could put off readers who might benefit greatly from this book. It also might have been more accessible if it led with the need for forgiveness and the benefits of it and then gradually introduced the more complex elements.
An earnest but overly dense collection of thoughts, meditations, and journal exercises.Pub Date: May 26, 2023
ISBN: 9798988105701
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Eighth Ray
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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