Neither sugarcoated nor overly raw, a cathartic, spiritually uplifting book to help cancer survivors overcome the lasting...
A heartfelt, well-crafted handbook about the effects of cancer treatments.
Numerous books address the subject of living with cancer, and some discuss the side effects of cancer treatments. Few, however, tackle the challenge of living with the long-term effects of cancer treatments. Wheeler, a philosophy teacher who survived both breast and ovarian cancers, has undergone surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. She was led to believe that the symptoms she sustained years after her treatment were possibly age-related, but her research suggested otherwise. Wheeler’s book is the result of her personal quest to learn about life after cancer treatment; it demonstrates both her determination to discover the truth and her desire to help other cancer survivors. Describing her writing effort as “this ‘Alphabet Soup’ of my own experience,” Wheeler wants readers to take that line literally: She organizes the bulk of the book into 26 chapters, each related to a letter of the alphabet and each covering a specific area she wants to discuss. For example, in “A is for Anxiety,” Wheeler writes that “[a]nxiety may well be the most overwhelming problem post treatment cancer patients endure.” In “K is for Kin,” she observes that “many of us may never be the same as we were before cancer….We are left to find our own way, each of us, as best we can.” Wheeler pinpoints a particular challenge, symptom or issue in each short chapter and writes about it with insight and compassion. Her revealing perspective as someone who has lived through many cancer treatments combines with her research-based advice and her philosophical bent to create a personal, moving and instructive book. On occasion, the author uses storytelling, references to mythological characters and excerpts from poems to add a literary flavor to her writing, lifting this manual above the ordinary. Readers who have gone through cancer treatments are sure to find solace in Wheeler’s words.
Neither sugarcoated nor overly raw, a cathartic, spiritually uplifting book to help cancer survivors overcome the lasting effects of treatment and get on with their lives.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-1484907702
Page Count: 152
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 27, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
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