An offbeat memoir that honors both the messiness of vet work and the quiet satisfactions of family life.
A memoir of marriage, sacrifice, and joy—and a life shaped by veterinary practice.
The author’s husband of many decades is a veterinarian whose work has always structured nearly every major family decision. A string of ill-fated early jobs and a leap of faith spur them to open a practice in a lakeside Michigan town. From there, Eddington sketches a vivid portrait of agricultural and mixed-animal veterinary work: midnight emergencies, walk-in chaos, dangerous equipment, uncooperative animals, and clients whose gratitude is matched only by their occasional fury. The narrative is episodic, built around anecdotes of life and work. Some of these life moments are funny or absurd—a pleasant lakeside walk marred by a flotilla of dead squirrels, for one—while others showcase the quiet devastation of euthanasia, burnout, and ethical strain. Fans of the reality TV series The Incredible Dr. Pol will be satisfied by the range of gross-out medical interventions found in the text. Also interwoven is the story of a family shaped by the veterinary profession: a journalist wife juggling her own career and the labors of caretaking, a daughter who grows up to follow the family business, and a rotating cast of friends and employees good and bad. We learn much about devotion to animals, the labor of care, the fragility of a small business, and the compromises demanded by a calling that rarely respects holidays, finances, or personal plans. As a memoir of professional and family life, Eddington’s memoir succeeds in both style and substance. Eddington doesn’t sentimentalize veterinary work or dwell too long on its downsides, preferring instead to capture its grit with affection and honesty. The life lessons she offers about balance, partnership, resilience, and seizing joy where possible are simple but sincere, emerging from real experience. A general audience should find the book engaging and generous.
An offbeat memoir that honors both the messiness of vet work and the quiet satisfactions of family life.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9798896361305
Page Count: 240
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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