A charming and sometimes-uplifting book about finding contentment.
A self-help guide for adults, presented in the manner of a children’s picture book.
In this brief, somewhat whimsical work, authors Milana and Edwards and illustrators Horton and Horton adapt the form and sentiment of a kids’ book—complete with colorful images and simple, read-aloud rhymes—and apply them to distinctly adult concerns. There’s no larger, coherent plot here; each page is a separate, quick meditation on some aspect of contemporary adult life, such as “I once tried new things, was fearless & fun, / Seems so long ago, when I was so young.” Another rhyme reads: “What if all that is left at the end of the day / are piles of regrets, bills and debts left to pay?” From such somber prompts, the book’s creators craft a series of sunny sentiments aimed at adults who feel overwhelmed by modern life or disappointed by how expectations turned out. The book shapes a larger message of optimism, with bright affirmations designed to raise the adult readers’ spirits: “What came before has made me this me. / I am exactly who I’m meant to be,” asserts one verse. “The secret’s inside (as you already know) / Only you can help you continue to grow,” reads another. The book’s larger goal is to allay adult fears (such as “What if this is it, the best I will see?”) and help harried readers to see the encouraging, even transformative potential in everyday worries, and its accentuation of the positive can be effective at times. The illustration style is winningly cartoonish, with clean lines that match the simple, straightforward concepts. The prose also showcases a puckish, topical humor, as well: “I’ll climb a new mountain, start eating kale,” one line jokes, accompanied by an illustration of a TV remote control. “Change this old channel, it’s my fairy tale!”
A charming and sometimes-uplifting book about finding contentment.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73543-640-1
Page Count: 42
Publisher: Madness To Magic
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.
An experimental, illustrated essay collection that questions neurotypical definitions of what is normal.
From a young age, writer and comedian Myers has been different. In addition to coping with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks, she struggled to read basic social cues. During a round of seven minutes in heaven—a game in which two players spend seven minutes in a closet and are expected to kiss—Myers misread the romantic advances of her best friend and longtime crush, Marley. In Paris, she accidentally invited a sex worker to join her friends for “board games and beer,” thinking he was simply a random stranger who happened to be hitting on her. In community college, a stranger’s request for a pen spiraled her into a panic attack but resulted in a tentative friendship. When the author moved to Australia, she began taking notes on her colleagues in an effort to know them better. As the author says to her co-worker, Tabitha, “there are unspoken social contracts within a workplace that—by some miracle—everyone else already understands, and I don’t….When things Go Without Saying, they Never Get Said, and sometimes people need you to Say Those Things So They Understand What The Hell Is Going On.” At its best, Myers’ prose is vulnerable and humorous, capturing characterization in small but consequential life moments, and her illustrations beautifully complement the text. Unfortunately, the author’s tendency toward unnecessary capitalization and experimental forms is often unsuccessful, breaking the book’s otherwise steady rhythm.
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063381308
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
