A sassy, colorful take on New-Age insights.
A self-help memoir about one woman overcoming a broken marriage and alcoholism to find spiritual fulfillment.
“Magical chapters can start with really sucky endings,” writes Muldoon (Giant Love Song, 2018, etc.), and she begins this remembrance with one such conclusion. Her marriage to fellow actor “Reed” (names have been changed) collapsed in divorce after she learned that he’d been having an affair with a former Miss Universe. Suddenly, the author was facing life as a single mother of a 3-year-old, so to make ends meet, she became a children’s party entertainer and auditioned for acting jobs in commercials and theater productions. As she did so, she took a year off from pursuing romantic relationships to focus on her own emotional healing. Her period of celibacy, she says, forced her to rely on herself, but she eventually met “Will,” a fellow actor and a cancer survivor. Although they’d assumed that he was sterile from chemotherapy, she became pregnant before they married and went on to have two more children. Muldoon finally confronted her drinking problem—which began in her teen years, after her mother’s death—by attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and reading Helen Schucman’s 1976 book A Course in Miracles. Now she considers herself a spiritual coach and “celebrant,” and she directs the SpeakEasy Spiritual Community. Later, when she got a call from the aforementioned Miss Universe, lamenting that Reed was seeing someone else, she responded with compassion, rather than vengeful glee. Muldoon re-creates her story with vivid descriptions, believable dialogue, and enjoyable portraits of such people as her occasional roommate “Skye.” Along the way, she offers keen observations on the “scripts and structures” that underpin the modern dating game, which subordinate women’s needs to men’s senses of entitlement. The timeline can be a bit confusing when the memoir loops back to past events, but the book’s arrangement is more thematic than chronological; the 16 chapter titles align with a final list of exhortations. The author also offers concrete, valuable examples of how the “feminine Divine” can help turn trauma into spiritual wisdom, which should particularly appeal to fans of Louise Hay’s work.
A sassy, colorful take on New-Age insights.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63152-447-9
Page Count: 232
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
At this rate, Tyson may write a multivolume memoir as he continues to struggle and survive.
An exhaustive—and exhausting—chronicle of the champ's boxing career and disastrous life.
Tyson was dealt an unforgiving hand as a child, raised in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn in a "horrific, tough and gruesome" environment populated by "loud, aggressive" people who "smelled like raw sewage.” A first-grade dropout with several break-ins under his belt by age 7, his formal education resumed when he was placed in juvenile detention at age 11, but the lesson he learned at home was to do absolutely anything to survive. Two years later, his career path was set when he met legendary boxing trainer Cus D'Amato. However, Tyson’s temperament never changed; if anything, it hardened when he took on the persona of Iron Mike, a merciless and savage fighter who became undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. By his own admission, he was an "arrogant sociopath" in and out of the ring, and he never reconciled his thuggish childhood with his adult self—nor did he try. He still partied with pimps, drug addicts and hustlers, and he was determined to feed all of his vices and fuel several drug addictions at the cost of his freedom (he recounts his well-documented incarcerations), sanity and children. Yet throughout this time, he remained a voracious reader, and he compares himself to Clovis and Charlemagne and references Camus, Sartre, Mao Zedong and Nietzsche's "Overman" in casual conversation. Tyson is a slumdog philosopher whose insatiable appetites have ruined his life many times over. He remains self-loathing and pitiable, and his tone throughout the book is sardonic, exasperated and indignant, his language consistently crude. The book, co-authored by Sloman (co-author: Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of Kiss, 2012, etc.), reads like his journal; he updated it after reading the galleys and added "A Postscript to the Epilogue" as well.
At this rate, Tyson may write a multivolume memoir as he continues to struggle and survive.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-16128-5
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
Rhimes said “yes” to sharing her insights. Following her may not land you on the cover of a magazine, but you’ll be glad you...
The queen of Thursday night TV delivers a sincere and inspiring account of saying yes to life.
Rhimes, the brain behind hits like Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, is an introvert. She describes herself as a young girl, playing alone in the pantry, making up soap-opera script stories to act out with the canned goods. Speaking in public terrified her; going to events exhausted her. She was always busy, and she didn’t have enough time for her daughters. One Thanksgiving changed it all: when her sister observed that she never said “yes” to anything, Rhimes took it as a challenge. She started, among other things, accepting invitations, facing unpleasant conversations, and playing with her children whenever they asked. The result was a year of challenges and self-discovery that led to a fundamental shift in how she lives her life. Rhimes tells us all about it in the speedy, smart style of her much-loved TV shows. She’s warm, eminently relatable, and funny. We get an idea of what it’s like to be a successful TV writer and producer, to be the ruler of Shondaland, but the focus is squarely on the lessons one can learn from saying yes rather than shying away. Saying no was easy, Rhimes writes. It was comfortable, “a way to disappear.” But after her year, no matter how tempting it is, “I can no longer allow myself to say no. No is no longer in my vocabulary.” The book is a fast read—readers could finish it in the time it takes to watch a full lineup of her Thursday night programing—but it’s not insubstantial. Like a cashmere shawl you pack just in case, Year of Yes is well worth the purse space, and it would make an equally great gift.
Rhimes said “yes” to sharing her insights. Following her may not land you on the cover of a magazine, but you’ll be glad you did.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4767-7709-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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