An expressive, if sometimes elusive, assortment of thoughts and ideas on love.
One man explores the idea of divine love through his collection of poetic musings, meditations, and observations.
Mihal’s examination of love’s divine nature comprises four parts. The first, “Daily Meditation: Her,” begins with dated excerpts that start on August 7, 2019, and introduces readers to the unidentified “Her.” Each entry consists of anywhere from a half-page to multipage snippets of thought. Although Mihal spends much time discussing his feelings for Her (“I try to remember at what point my heart became irreversibly touched by her soul image”), this feeling often bleeds into a more expansive concept of “divine love”—also referred to throughout as “The Goddess Within.” The second section, “Daily and Walking Meditation: Seoul—South Korea,” loosely follows the narrator’s time in Seoul as he contemplates things like the need to feel grateful when “the beloved” accepts the gift of offered love. Part three, “Deep Meditation and Visions: Thoughts of Enlightenment,” dabbles in more concrete language and practical advice for readers. Mihal defines mantra, for example, and demonstrates how the idea exists across multiple religions under different names (Hesychasm for Christianity, Sufism for Islam, Bhakti Yoga for Hinduism, etc.). The last section, “Memories of My ‘Self,’” expresses Mihal’s belief that everyone has the ability to change their reality through dreams. He then recalls a handful of dreams that have stuck with him: “I saw the arguing guy’s face so close that the details were like being in reality…And I had the impulse to Matrix out of this environment and push his car like in those damn movie effects.” Sprinkled throughout are occasional quotes from people like Maya Angelou and Mother Teresa, as well as “inspiring music” suggestions, like “Hey Laura” byGregory Porter.
Mihal creates mini prose portraits of feelings and moments that trace the nuances of his emotions, some of which will likely be familiar to others (“Time becomes a value more appreciated than anything else when feeling kind or loving someone in moments of togetherness”), while others are more abstract (“Warmth, happiness and the echo of eternity make a point in a vacuum. Your soul is bathing in those feelings encapsulated in a simple word like ‘Love’”). While the blend of poetic reflections and meditations are beautiful, the writing ultimately leans too heavily on the vague, sometimes indistinct musings of the author. Passages often contain terms and phrases that haven’t been fully fleshed out (“soul message,” “soul dreaming,” etc.). Even the sections that attempt some sort of narrative thread, like those in the Seoul section, are very much open to interpretation: “After the movie, being close to my beloved friend, Han River, hearing its calling to talk over a walk meditation along with the Wind and Sun all day long was a stroll through the veil of time.” Mihal’s overall message—embrace the vastness of love and use the physical and spiritual selves to reflect it to others—is an uplifting and admirable one. Regrettably, that message gets lost among inexact phrasing and structure.
An expressive, if sometimes elusive, assortment of thoughts and ideas on love.Pub Date: July 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781068630026
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Mystic Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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