For the fans.
The creator of a popular YouTube channel makes her book debut.
When Rienks, a lifestyle vlogger and Instagram influencer, contracted mononucleosis as a teen, her mother, one of two “save-the-world bookworm” parents, suggested that she make a YouTube channel. Once anxious and insecure, the author found her niche. In this confessional mashup of memoir, self-help advice, mildly amusing lists (“100 Things That Are Worse Than a Broken Heart” or 40 ways not to break up with someone), and cutesy chapter titles (“Pimp Yo Profile,” “What To Do When Your Parents Kind of Suck”), Rienks reassures fans that while “your problems are not unique…the upside is you’re not alone.” Throughout the book, which is best taken in small doses, the author revisits the same handful of topics—parties, dating and sex, heartbreak, angst, depression, difficult friendships—from shifting angles, and the advice is often shopworn, obvious, or unhelpful—e.g., a chapter on confidence boils down to faking it until you make it. Underneath the buoyant performance and tongue-in-cheek vanity—“I can make an Oscar-worthy Tinder profile, formulate the perfect combination of cheeky yet engaging messages on Bumble, and can compose a seamless response to every text that leaves the recipient completely and totally enamored”—Rienks occasionally hits on genuinely gritty topics, including bullying, sexual assault, alcoholism, ADHD, and why she cut off contact with her mother (a rending portrayal of familial toxicity). Refreshingly, the author reinforces that it’s OK to seek help and that life often does get better. Rienks wisely stops short of drawing a direct line from specific traumas to depression, acknowledging that there are complex factors for why certain events can affect people's mental health. Rewardingly, the book ends with the author finding healthy love. Rienks’ existing audience will find the narrative to be a brave, behind-the-webcam look at self-discovery. Casual readers may dismiss it as an erratic chronicle of resilience.
For the fans.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-1010-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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