A direct and no-nonsense manual to help young people navigate the world of intimacy.
A guide for adolescent readers explores the intricacies of sex and romance.
Alexander’s (Creating Your Life, 2018, etc.) compact manual acknowledges at the outset that there’s often a problem with the way young people are instructed about the two subjects that excite their curiosity the most: sex and love. As the author points out, they are often given stern warnings and vague generalizations but nothing specific or helpful. His book attempts to rectify this problem, laying out clearly worded basics on everything from sex to dating to marriage to the fundamental differences—biological, mental, and emotional—between boys and girls. At every stage of the guide, Alexander takes a step back in order to look at the big picture of what he’s discussing, and, as in his other books, he then shapes the outlines of that picture with the Socratic method of asking a series of clarifying questions. Under the heading of maintaining healthy communications in marriages and long-term relationships, for example, readers are asked, “Do you actively listen to your beloved? Do you maintain eye contact and respond thoughtfully? Do you and your beloved engage in regular activities together? Do you share pleasures?” At the heart of Alexander’s comments about sex is his insistence that it is an intoxicant, something that can impair judgment as certainly and negatively as alcohol. His call to action is the same here as in his other manuals: “Are you ready to do the hard work of transforming yourself into a different kind of person?” The advice in these pages is generally keen and perceptive, although there are odd lapses, particularly in the chapter “What Girls Should Know About Boys,” which delivers a long string of oddly ad hominem generalizations about boys—that they have little problem forgetting about girls immediately after sex; that they don’t perceive indirect communication; etc. Parents of boys will likely find these kinds of assertions confusing. But the bulk of the guide’s advice is invaluable, particularly for young readers in search of clear answers.
A direct and no-nonsense manual to help young people navigate the world of intimacy.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-937597-22-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: The School of Pythagoras
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
© Copyright 2025 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.
