A detailed and relatable career manual.
Business strategist and public speaker Palmer offers Black women a guidebook to climbing the corporate ladder.
The author notes that she quickly learned, while working in a corporate setting, that the “workplace wasn’t a meritocracy; it was a chessboard” on which many Black women were never taught all the moves. This book opens with Palmer’s own story, from when she received a full-tuition scholarship at an elite private college at age 16 to when she experienced early success in health care administration. Although a corporate leadership position gave her a confidence boost, she came to believe that the cutthroat world of American business was a “rigged” game, designed to marginalize Black women like herself. Addressing her book to “the sisterhood of Black women in corporate America,” Palmer shares her advice for navigating unwritten rules of the workplace: “The few times I tried to question the structure and why certain people were always in the room,” she recalls, “I quickly saw the costs.” The book notes the difficult terrain that Black women must navigate (“You might find yourself working twice as hard yet told you’re barely meeting expectations”) and offers practical advice on how to maintain one’s professional reputation, increase one’s visibility without risking overexposure, and identify and protect oneself from workplace adversaries. The book’s self-empowerment message is careful to emphasize that Black women may succeed in their careers “not by changing who [they] are,” but by leveraging their skills in the context of business politics. Palmer, whose work has been featured in Writer’s Digest and Black Enterprise, among other national publications, has a writing style that blends realistic assessment of race relations with an optimistic, confidence-building message. Her emphasis on reader engagement is aided by accessible organization, with each chapter featuring easy-to-understand lists, concluding summaries, and questions for reflection.
A detailed and relatable career manual.Pub Date: May 12, 2025
ISBN: 9798992199420
Page Count: 384
Publisher: SmallPub
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2025
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 sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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