A skimpy take on defective relationships.
This debut self-help work aims to aid readers who give all their attention, understanding, and love to male partners who fail to reciprocate.
Many self-help books have been written about unhappy relationships since the influential bestsellers Women Who Love Too Much (1985) and Codependent No More (1986). The new outlook this volume offers, explain Hosier, a clinical psychologist specializing in relationship counseling, and Conger, is to put aside painful, pathological labels like “dysfunctional,” “codependent,” or “narcissistic” for partners and instead focus on “growing and changing their perspectives.” The authors prefer the term “one-person relationship” to describe a one-sided situation where, for example, “You give up your self to go along with everything he wants and needs….He becomes your life.” Rather than being trapped by tags, assert the authors (who are sisters), readers with this viewpoint can gain opportunities for personal growth through learning to love themselves. (While this book is addressed to people in relationships with men, a 2017 companion volume, You’ll Do Anything for Her, for those with female partners, is also available.) In five chapters composed of chatty, mostly one-sentence paragraphs, the authors describe how one-person relationships develop; why people give themselves up in liaisons; and how families contribute to ideas about bonds. They also remind readers that they have a choice, recommend self-care strategies, and describe the possibilities of a two-person relationship. There isn’t much that’s really new in this guide. Harville Hendrix, whose books and Imago therapy are recommended by the authors, also stresses the importance of giving up judgments, for example, and it would be a rare relationship self-help manual that didn’t advise learning to love oneself. Some readers will likely respond to the authors’ warm, encouraging one-on-one tone and find nuggets of useful advice, such as thinking about options before automatically saying yes. Examples from actual relationships, though, would have given a stronger foundation to the authors’ broad pronouncements, which can also be shallow; for example, “mistakes are really just situations that you would have preferred to have handled in a different way.”
A skimpy take on defective relationships.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62901-448-7
Page Count: -
Publisher: Inkwater Press
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A vibrant, encouraging depiction of a sinister disorder.
A British novelist turns to autobiography to report the manifold symptoms and management of his debilitating disease, depression.
Clever author Haig (The Humans, 2013, etc.) writes brief, episodic vignettes, not of a tranquil life but of an existence of unbearable, unsustainable melancholy. Throughout his story, presented in bits frequently less than a page long (e.g., “Things you think during your 1,000th panic attack”), the author considers phases he describes in turn as Falling, Landing, Rising, Living, and, finally, simply Being with spells of depression. Haig lists markers of his unseen disease, including adolescent angst, pain, continual dread, inability to speak, hypochondria, and insomnia. He describes his frequent panic attacks and near-constant anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure. Haig also assesses the efficacy of neuroscience, yoga, St. John’s wort, exercise, pharmaceuticals, silence, talking, walking, running, staying put, and working up the courage to do even the most seemingly mundane of tasks, like visiting the village store. Best for the author were reading, writing, and the frequent dispensing of kindnesses and love. He acknowledges particularly his debt to his then-girlfriend, now-wife. After nearly 15 years, Haig is doing better. He appreciates being alive and savors the miracle of existence. His writing is infectious though sometimes facile—and grammarians may be upset with the writer’s occasional confusion of the nominative and objective cases of personal pronouns. Less tidy and more eclectic than William Styron’s equally brief, iconic Darkness Visible, Haig’s book provides unobjectionable advice that will offer some help and succor to those who experience depression and other related illnesses. For families and friends of the afflicted, Haig’s book, like Styron’s, will provide understanding and support.
A vibrant, encouraging depiction of a sinister disorder.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-312872-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
SEEN & HEARD
Readers Donate Depression Book After Star Suicide
An easy reading book of supportive encouragement to follow one’s dreams.
More than 40 career-changers tell their stories.
Introduced by Facebook executive and founder of Leanin.org Sheryl Sandberg, Lewis’ second cousin, the book offers exuberant advice for people who want to make a leap—daring or modest—from one career path to another, just as he did. At the age of 24, working for the investment firm Bain Capital, the author felt restless and dissatisfied. “I began to realize,” he writes, “that I wanted this life mostly because I thought I should,” but he heard “a very distinct if faint voice” urging him to try something “very different.” As he considered following his passion to become a professional squash player, Lewis sought advice from others who made similar jumps: a banker-turned-cyclist, for example, and a journalist-turned-politician. From them, and the others whose stories fill the book, he came up with the idea of the Jump Curve, a process of four key phases: listening to your inner voice, making a practical plan, believing in your own good luck, and rejecting regret. “You will come out stronger,” Lewis insists, even if your initial plan fails. “I keep coming back to the idea of agency,” said a man who made a move from corporate hospitality service to restaurant ownership: “the difference between life happening to you versus you making life happen.” Among the individuals profiled are a nurse who, at the age of 50, became a doctor; a football player–turned-writer; an investment professional who became coxswain of the U.S. Paralympic Rowing Team; a PR executive who found her calling as an Episcopal bishop; and a lawyer who sued the New York fire department to admit women firefighters—and then became the first woman hired. “Harassment, discrimination, death threats,” and physical abuse dogged her 25-year career. But, she says, “this was a jump worth fighting for,” a sentiment that Lewis underscores. Changing careers is risky, but “there is a risk to not taking a jump at all.”
An easy reading book of supportive encouragement to follow one’s dreams.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-12421-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
© 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.
