Motivating, big-picture advice for college and beyond.
A college administrator discusses the mindset and actions needed for a successful college and post-college life in this debut self-help guide.
As part of a task force assessing at-risk students early in his career, Clark was “amazed…there was no correlation between those considered at-risk and those that actually dropped out” and eventually determined that there was “a common thread in those who stayed versus those who quit…students who had or acquired a sense of purpose.” In this guide, he provides discussion, tools, and exercises to develop such purpose, using a business model as a starting point, noting “that the average student has never sat down to write out a plan defining what they want to get out of their college education, their college experience and, more broadly, their life.” His chapters alternate between “Core Matters” and “Practical Matters,” with emphasis on the former, which include discovering and creating one’s “reality,” determining one’s belief and value systems, and building a vision for one’s life. “Practical Matters” include getting started at college by understanding how one learns best; networking with peers; avoiding unprotected sex while in college; and preparing to graduate by beginning a job search and practicing interviews at least six months beforehand. Clark also dedicates a chapter to leadership that defines its qualities (including empathy and trust) and underscores that one must be a decisive leader in one’s own life. Debut author Clark offers inspiring springboard guidance that applies to aspiring college students as well as other striving applicants in life. Although this book is mostly formatted as a narrative essay, Clark also provides helpful information boxes that highlight key precepts, illustrations that showcase life road maps, and exercises that allow readers to engage with his ideas, including one on “taming your words.” Although readers may need to consult other college-related guides to get more information regarding “practical matters,” Clark provides useful, universal foundational guidance here while also offering endearing, relatable revelations from his own life story.
Motivating, big-picture advice for college and beyond.Pub Date: March 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5076-8396-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.
A basketball legend reflects on his life in the game and a life lived in the “nightmare of endlessly repetitive and constant pain, agony, and guilt.”
Walton (Nothing but Net, 1994, etc.) begins this memoir on the floor—literally: “I have been living on the floor for most of the last two and a half years, unable to move.” In 2008, he suffered a catastrophic spinal collapse. “My spine will no longer hold me,” he writes. Thirty-seven orthopedic injuries, stemming from the fact that he had malformed feet, led to an endless string of stress fractures. As he notes, Walton is “the most injured athlete in the history of sports.” Over the years, he had ground his lower extremities “down to dust.” Walton’s memoir is two interwoven stories. The first is about his lifelong love of basketball, the second, his lifelong battle with injuries and pain. He had his first operation when he was 14, for a knee hurt in a basketball game. As he chronicles his distinguished career in the game, from high school to college to the NBA, he punctuates that story with a parallel one that chronicles at each juncture the injuries he suffered and overcame until he could no longer play, eventually turning to a successful broadcasting career (which helped his stuttering problem). Thanks to successful experimental spinal fusion surgery, he’s now pain-free. And then there’s the music he loves, especially the Grateful Dead’s; it accompanies both stories like a soundtrack playing off in the distance. Walton tends to get long-winded at times, but that won’t be news to anyone who watches his broadcasts, and those who have been afflicted with lifelong injuries will find the book uplifting and inspirational. Basketball fans will relish Walton’s acumen and insights into the game as well as his stories about players, coaches (especially John Wooden), and games, all told in Walton’s fervent, witty style.
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-1686-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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