A logical and highly accessible practice-based self-help resource.
A pragmatic, step-by-step guide to self-acceptance and understanding that focuses on personal growth.
Many people reach toward fulfillment only to find satisfaction just out of reach, or, sometimes, very far away. They find themselves “bogged down in the stuckness,” which Maidenberg defines as a cycle of regret and hopelessness—one that’s often but not always made worse by trauma, stress, and other emotional pain. Maidenberg’s ACE method is named for its three basic pillars—acceptance, compassion, and empowerment—but before delving into these, she explores the functions of the mind, particularly how it works to avoid uncomfortable situations. This inclination, she notes, can also obscure one’s core values, which affect one’s chosen goals and actions. By practicing mindfulness, completing questionnaires, and doing self-guided growth exercises, she aims to help readers discover these values and work toward meaningful change. With this information, Maidenberg writes, one may begin to cultivate radical self-acceptance, inner and outward compassion, and clearer self-perception. The author also provides examples from sessions with her own patients (with names changed). In each case, she expands on an aspect of ACE, emphasizing personal improvement but not neglecting self-care or health. The exercises are largely practical, drawing on aspects of cognitive behavioral therapy, various studies, and the author’s own life and work. Chapters end with QR codes that link to talks and self-guided meditations. Overall, for a guide that’s so heavily focused on the self, its process rarely feels solitary. Readers will find the various sections are easy to revisit, which makes sense, as the book stresses that ACE is a circular process in which one constantly reviews one’s thoughts, values, and actions. A list of additional readings and extensive citations is included for further study.
A logical and highly accessible practice-based self-help resource.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63195-854-0
Page Count: 284
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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