A passionate, if familiar, Christian account.
A Christian woman examines her faith in this memoir.
At the beginning of her book, Deir-Boyette recalls living a settled and seemingly satisfying life in Jamaica: “I had a job with the Jamaican government, a newly built house in a gated community, and a payment-free Honda Accord.” But she wasn’t sure how she would pay for her son’s college tuition or what exactly she should do next when suddenly she had a religious experience. She recalls that Jesus told her to move to the United States. “I was not going to let others’ negative comments deter me,” she writes. “I trusted God, and my faith was reactivated.” The work consists of the author’s recounting of various incidents in her life in Jamaica and also in America with her husband and sons. The thread she winds throughout the narrative traces the ubiquitous, revelatory presence of her faith in day-to-day life. Readers of Christian memoirs will know much of what to expect from such a narrative, and Deir-Boyette doesn’t disappoint. Her personal involvement in her own faith is uniformly dramatic, and the general lessons she draws from specific events are always upbeat. More skeptical readers will notice that she virtually always ascribes divine causation to things that have obvious real-world reasons. A few months before her son started university in North Carolina, for instance, legislation lowered the tuition—the author calls it “God’s grace.” Deir-Boyette worked hard and eventually got a corner office and a new car, asserting, “Who but God? Hallelujah!” At one point, when the author told some neighbors that she regularly heard God’s voice, they responded that her story was “too weird,” and some of her skeptical readers might agree. But Deir-Boyette’s insistence throughout that her faith is a living thing and that Jesus walks with her every day are sentiments that many of her fellow fundamentalist Christians will share.
A passionate, if familiar, Christian account.Pub Date: April 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-63168-4
Page Count: 194
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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